bigger fish feeding in easterly winds

Sorry if this has been done to death before but searching the forums gave far to many hits on the words feeding fish.

I am stuck in the house today and was just watching discovery shed and matt hayes came out with the old chestnut of " we didn't catch any big fish today because of an easterly wind".

I wonder why only the smaller fish would feed in poor conditions?

I want to know if this is just an anglers excuse or does it have any basis in fact?

I know that smaller fish will need to feed more, lower body mass, greater need to feed etc, but if it is poor fishing will all the big fish sit there and say, " not the right weather to feed " and leave the baits alone.

I personally have found in bad weather no fish seem to feed or they all do.

Granted, the smaller fish are less shy and seem to be first on the baits, and "feeding off" the smaller fish can work, but does the weather really make any difference to the size of fish that feed on a given day?

wind in the east fish bite least should only really apply in winter and spring, you're likely to actually get warmer weather with an easterly in summer and autumn.

Ananalys of wind direction.

Below are the results for wind direction taken from my records of the last 10/11 years. This is for fishing in generall including all species carp, tench, bream, roach, chub, big roach, crucian carp, rudd. They are percentages based on a scoring system of 5 points for a small fish, 10 points for a average sized fish and 15 points for a above average fish for the water fished in. Easterly winds don't come out well but, surprisingly NW winds do. good luck

S 14.04
SW 17.01
W 9.53
NW 25.02
N 11.74
NE 5.56
E 8.73
SE 8.39

There are no rules in angling as every angler knows but the fact is the east wind is colder, in fact any wind from north to south east is usually a few degrees colder than other winds. This affects fishing more in winter as has been stated but a sudden switch from say south west to east will put the fish down even in summer. Much the same applies as to where to fish in wind with the golden rule being into the wind in summer and behind the wind in winter. Settled weather is the best time to fish and fish will eventually settle down in a wind even from the east after 2 or 3 days in summer.

Good point

Good point Graham, there are no rules and I have caught many good fish in easterly winds and I would never consider being put off fishing by any one wind direction or any condition for that matter. Still I think these statistics are interesting sometimes and can help to reinforce a point or not as the case may be. But the wind direction is a weak point and I have often thought it is more to do with the prevalent, relevent weather, temperatures, barometric pressures etc that are normally associated with any particular wind direction. I think these affect the results far more than the actual wind direction.

Generally in my experience wind direction has had an influence over my catch rate - on stillwaters.

In winter and spring a SW or W wind for more than 3/4 days has a big impact. In summer and autumn if a SW or W wind follows after a cold snap - this can also impact on the catch return.

Canals and rivers tend not to be influenced with wind direction - although they are with an increase in atmospheric temperature.

Easterly winds can have a very marked effect upon sea fishing prospects - often they seem to put even the crabs to bed. Westerlies of any kind are most reliable I find. At sea the wind direction can influence areas the size of small continents, so not surprising that the effects can be considerable.

As for coarse fishing, not sure if wind direction is as important as wind temperature.

---------- Post added at 19:59 ---------- Previous post was at 19:52 ----------

shaunfox said:

Canals and rivers tend not to be influenced with wind direction - although they are with an increase in atmospheric temperature.

Click to expand...

On the contrary, canals are very influenced by the winds direction. Canals are like twisting still water rivers, so a blow from one direction for a few days will tend to concentrate debris in one small area because the rubbish just drifts with the wind until it reaches a place where the winds influence is null. What I mean to say is that the wind can be blowing hard down the cut and creating chop in one stretch and turning the corner a hundred yard down and it will be blowing at right angles and the water will be dead still and full of floating ****.

I invariably fish in the **** mostly because fishing a canal exposed to a stiff breeze is a form of torture!