The Best Daytime for Bass Fishing
Every animal species, including humans, has unique nutrition habits depending on the daytime. Such as the way you eat during the day is your nutrition habit. Some animals hunt by the day, while others only consider night hunting.
Fishes are not an exemption from this rule. Some species feed exclusively under daylight, while others have a nocturnal nature. It is essential to know when the fish you want to catch feeds up the most in the day. You might hook nothing if you are going fishing at the wrong moment.
Seasons
The best daytime for bass fishing varies depending on the season:
Winter
The particularities of winter days are:
- Short light days (about 6 hours, depending on the latitude you live on)
- Low temperatures
- Absence of insects
- Ice
In winter, the bass does not act much as water is cold. It is feeding when the sun heats strong enough to heat the water in the least. Midday is the optimal time to fish bass when it is freezing outside.
As soon as the sun goes down over the horizon, bass tends to go deeper in warmer waters. Due to the absence of insects, the bass does not adapt to their life cycle. It means that there are no activity peaks in the morning and the evening when flies and mosquitoes group over the water.
Ice bass fishing
In some regions, the ice on the water surface does not melt for the whole winter, blocking potential food for bass from falling in the water. If the ice depth is safe enough (more than 12 cm./5in.), it is possible to try yourself in ice bass fishing. When the water is covered by ice, fish feeding habits change too. There is no more food coming from outside, and the water temperature is constant. So there is no strict timetable on ice fishing.
Attention: ice fishing is a high-risk activity. Falling through the ice in cold water causes significant health damage, up to death. Be extremely careful coming on the ice, and fish only during the daylight.
Spring
As the days get longer and water warms up bass starts spawning. In this season, fish intensively feed up to have energy for reproduction. In spring, fish are active for the whole day regardless of the sunshine. Meanwhile, insects begin to recreate after the winter, and towards the end of spawning, all insects are awake after winter. Towards the end of spawning, insects become principal prey of bass and the feeding hours split up into two parts: the early morning bite and the evening bite.
Summer
Summer is the best season for bass fishing. The water is warm (sometimes too much), and plenty of various insects and mosquitoes are attracted to the humid microclimate of rivers and lakes. The summer day cycle of bass is conditioned to ambient temperatures. If the weather in the area you fish in is warm, with little wind and light rains, the bass would be acting more or less for the entire day up to twilight.
If the summer is so hot and humid that it is hardly possible to stay under the sun, the fish's behaviors tend to change. Fish is active in the early morning - when it is cold and fresh outside, and in the evening - when it is not so hot and the insects lay like a carpet over the water. On a hot day, fish seek cool, shadowed spots to survive the heat.
Autumn
As the weather gets rainy and colder, the fish start to store up the energetic reserves to survive the winter. Therefore, minnows and highly proteic invertebrates are the main feed. The insects disappear with the first frosty nights, and it is no longer possible for the fish to catch them. The sun is not as intense as in summer, thus there is no more summerish afternoon silence. In the fall, you can fish bass for the whole day just as there are no external factors influencing the fish biocycles.
Night fishing
You might have noticed that nothing was mentioned about the night fishing. The reason is simple: in the nighttime, the bass is not active at all. So do not go fishing for bass at night - it is useless.
P.S: The perfect daytime for fishing does not exist. It is highly subjective. A good trophy may be hooked in the blazing heat, or the fish would not be as active as expected during the spawning. But having information about fish habits and biocycles helps you choose the right moment for fishing. Have a good day fishing and may the luck be with you.
