Local Sports

New Year's fishing week will be hot

TBO.com
Published: December 30, 2012

The fishing forecast for the last two days of the year and the beginning of 2013, is a good one with warmer weather and mostly sunny skies forecast for this week. Winds will be strongest today but will diminish to perfect speeds for the remainder of the week as southwest winds keep temperatures within the ideal feeding range for fish.

The next rainfall event is forecasted for next weekend, so if you've planned a New Years fishing trip this week you will have everything in your favor. Perhaps it's a good omen, and 2013 will be one for the bass fishing record books.

The full moon phase is still dominating the daily feeding migrations with the majority of fish feeding during the midday to late afternoon hours, and again briefly after midnight. The sunrise and sunset feeding action should begin to pick-up about midweek, but it could be sooner than that due to the nighttime cloud cover that depressed the normal feeding action that the full moon would have produced over the past several nights

Since the cold fronts have not been too severe this winter season, and not long lasting enough to drop water temperatures out of the normal feeding range of below 65 degrees for long periods of time, I expect the early-morning feeding migration to be as active as the evening migration. And perhaps with some sunshine even surpass the rating of the evening bite. Daily these fishing periods will improve as the full moon wanes, with the evening bite probably the better of the two choices today and tomorrow.

The major feeding migration of the day occurs from 12 to 5 p.m. with a peak period today from 1 to 2 p.m. that will have a feed rating of 5 if there is plenty of sunshine. If not expect the rating to be half that. With the lunar apogee occurring a few days ago the feeding action is already "fair" at best, so with the cold front arriving yesterday this rating is optimistic to say the least.

The minor feeding migration of the day occurs twice, at sunrise and sunset. The feed rating today might reach a 3 or 4 and improve slightly tomorrow. The sunset migration will improve as the week advances simply due to it being the warmer time of day. However, by midweek the two feeding periods should be equal in rating.

The best day to fish over the next four days is Tuesday, New Years Day, when the winds shift to a southerly direction and put temperatures back into the lower 80s. If you happen to be out there when the weather shift occurs, you'll bring in a boat load, a great way to start out the new fishing year.

Looking ahead to the second half of this week anglers should see Tuesday's feeding action continue into Wednesday. By Thursday the winds will shift to out of the north, effectively stopping all fish feeding action. But just prior to that happening, you should be setting the hook consistently on quality fish.

Next week's fishing conditions I expect to be cooler by about 10 degrees as the last quarter moon phase and a moon orbiting back to perigee starts to increase the feeding action during the sunset. In fact, other than the new and full moon phases of the month, this time of day is the best time of day to fish the majority of the winter days. Warmer than normal winter nights and bright sunrise are needed to put the sunrise feeding action on par with the sunset feeding action.

Dave Douglass is a bass fishing guide, teacher and conservationist. Visit his website at HighlandsBassAngler.com.