Barometric pressure and fishing

[DZ]

There are times like these:

The solunar tables tell me that the fish will bite, but the moon is full and fishing sucks.

The night is "black as coal" in mid June, but the wind is east and the fishing sucks.

There is a front coming in: SW hard, then hard NW, but the bass are no where to be found.

It's 11pm as I put my trash barrels out - I can "smell" the bass in the air (I live a 1/4 mile from the surf), 3 hours later without a hit (but plenty of casting practice) I hit the sack.

The Block Island shad bushes are in full bloom but I can't find a bass.

Excerpt from "Black As Coal":
Conditions were perfect. The tide pulling hard, the plugs pulsating and working nicely in the current. All of my tricks were not producing - the drop back, the dart, and the agonizingly slow retrieve with the needle that stripers can't resist. None of them worked. I then said to myself "You know Dennis - sometimes they just don't bite". It's nothing that you do wrong. Not the conditions on which to lay blame. Sometimes they just don't bite. But why is that? Just another surfcasting mystery to solve on another night, another tide, maybe tomorrow, maybe next year. I'll figure it out eventually, I have to. They are my passion, these nights "Black as Coal".


And then there are these times:

Second day of a cold front, bright full moon, wind howling NW at 25, good night for me to sleep in... - my partner calls me in the morning: "Where were you last night?"
(I hate those morning after calls.)

Two weeks of no bass - middle of August, 12 noon, temp close to 90, cows swirling in 5 feet of water taking my poppers while I'm getting a wicked bad sunburn.

Like everyone, I have my set of "preferred conditions" when I'd like to be chasing Roccus. But I've been around long enough to know that there are always exceptions to my "general rules", and as I always say - "Bass don't read my general rules".

A good set of conditions at Montauk might suck on the Cape.

So get out there and cast - pay attention to what the barometer says but don't overlook wind direction, moon, current, tide, bait, flowers in the backyard, your olfactory, etc, and don't let them govern the times you fish.
Be flexible.
And, as Ed B says , everything is interrelated, there are so MANY variables. How they affect each other is a piece of the puzzle. Just add one more thing - Confidence - with it you'll be a much better fisherman.

DZ