Rain Days: The Best for Fishing?

Plenty of anglers opt to stay on dry land – indoors – when the weatherman is calling for rain. This is a mistake. A big mistake. Don the foul weather gear and hit the water when liquid sunshine is falling, and you’ll quickly discover that not only doesn’t rain deter the fish from biting, it often kicks them into high gear.

Okay, truth be told it may not even be the rain that gets the fish chomping. But in order to rain it has to be cloudy. And that cloud cover squelches out the sunshine. Just like we humans, quite often on bright, sunny days the fish are more interested in getting some relief from the heat than they are in chasing stuff. On top of that, rain may be accompanied by pressure changes that trigger a bite. So when the forecast includes it don’t get depressed and instead, get some bait. Here are a few tips that will help change your rainy-day attitude.

• Tone down your color choices. Matte and dull colors often work better in low-light conditions, and that dull gray jig tail may work a lot better than the fluorescent pink one when the sky is covered in a thick overcast.
• Head shallow. Many fish don’t particularly like being in clear shallows in direct sunlight, but will use rainy days hunt in skinny water.
• Try topwater, even during daylight hours. When it’s sunny topwater rarely does the trick mid-day, but in a driving rain the fish don’t mind looking – and hunting – up. Note: in a downpour you’ll want to use a chugger or popper, which causes an irregular commotion that the fish can detect through the background noise of the rain. Stealthier topwaters, on the other hand, may not be as easy for the fish to track.