Questions about wind

[ardinn]

Im very confused about wind at the mo (no fart jokes)

I fish the east coast, and have heard that an east wind is bad - whats the most favourable wind conditions in the wex/wicklow areas.

I was fishing tuesday morning and had a south easterly wind, it basically turned the tide sideways making it very strange to fish. Waves coming in at 45 degrees rather than straight into the beach as usual.

If I do make a trek to the beach which is over an hours drive for me and do hit a bad wind whats the best way to fish it? Or just pack up and leave.

I have the options of heading down further either side of the beach to a point, or to a curve in the sand meaning I can get straight out in front of me (waves as normal) or fish off the point with the waves pulling me back to the right, and to the shore.

Sorry for this probably ridiculous question but I really want to find out as I have had a couple of wasted trips now and it isnt easy to manage to get away.

[kieran]

Hi

I've never heard a decent explanation for why an east wind is bad news but it certainly is... so can't help you there.

When fishing a beach, its probably best to look at the terrain at low water to identify gullies, rocks, depressions and sand bars that will channel or collect fish. This would be as if not more important than the wind direction. The other thing worth noting is the presence of any rip currents or similar that again tend to collect larger predatory fish into more specific locations. If you search on rip currents, there are some excellent explanations of this on the forums.

Hope this helps

[roger de dodger]

I find a north wind even worse than an east, probably southerly best and westerly can be good depending on what your after

[chuckaroo]

Some reading here: http://www.sea-angling-ireland.org/foru ... nd#p272595
Hope it helps in answering a few questions...

[jhcabs]

What i have been told about the easterlies and north easterlies is that it drops the sea temperatures down which will stop the bait fish like sand eels from moving in which will in turn effect the food chain higher up, so the larger fish stay away. They stay in deeper water where the temperatures tend not to be affected.

Now the warmer water coming up from the atlantic stream will still slowly creep up towards the irish sea and eventually the celtic sea no matter what the winds are so i think by May the wind directions doesn't have the same negative effect, unless your fishing with lures as the onshore winds on the east coast will ruin the visiiblity,

I'm not certain of this but its been the best explanation i ever heard.

If you look at the SST map from the last week or two it does seem to show what i'm talking about. The lighter Greens are the warmer water

I check this map every few days and i think its past the point where the easterlies will have the negative affect. Give it another week and the water will be above 12c all along the east coast.

SST 28- 4.png

[donal domeney]

Stick up a link for that page.

[jhcabs]

Stick up a link for that page.

To best Weather sites i've ever used as fishing resources. I still use wind finder and Met.ie but i always check these daily

http://www.surfline.com/weather-forecas ... ture_2171/

http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wi ... 56.09,2048

Nullschool is an absolutely awesome application. If you click on the maps it will give the wind speeds for that location

[jw]

What i have been told about the easterlies and north easterlies is that it drops the sea temperatures down which will stop the bait fish like sand eels from moving in which will in turn effect the food chain higher up, so the larger fish stay away. They stay in deeper water where the temperatures tend not to be affected.


^^^^^^
it is certainly true that in the middle of winter there is no sunshine, plankton sandeels etc,
and that in summer these are present, but how could you know that
during the season very small daily variations in water temperature cause these creatures to move around?
and anyway, is there an exact correlation or any correlation between wind direction and temperature?

For example, i would not go blue shark fishing in february, i would go in late august,
but it wouldn't bother me at all if the day was a little cloudyier than yesterday or the
wind was from a particular direction or whatever

[Dave78]

Some reading here: http://www.sea-angling-ireland.org/foru ... nd#p272595
Hope it helps in answering a few questions...

thanks chuckaroo that was an interesting read

Sent from my GT-S5830i using Tapatalk 2

[jhcabs]

What i have been told about the easterlies and north easterlies is that it drops the sea temperatures down which will stop the bait fish like sand eels from moving in which will in turn effect the food chain higher up, so the larger fish stay away. They stay in deeper water where the temperatures tend not to be affected.


^^^^^^
it is certainly true that in the middle of winter there is no sunshine, plankton sandeels etc,
and that in summer these are present, but how could you know that
during the season very small daily variations in water temperature cause these creatures to move around?
and anyway, is there an exact correlation or any correlation between wind direction and temperature?

For example, i would not go blue shark fishing in february, i would go in late august,
but it wouldn't bother me at all if the day was a little cloudyier than yesterday or the
wind was from a particular direction or whatever

I'm not an expert, but like i said these are the best explanations i have read. Shallow water does definitely vary in its water temperatures and i witnessed it clearly watching the SST forecasts over the past few weeks. Warmer water was slowly creeping up into the irish sea during the weeks leading up to the recent bank holidays. Once the east winds kicked up i could clearly see the change in the forecast.

Since i put up the last screen shot you can see its recided even further out into the Atlanic. I suppose a good experiment is to watch what happens when the winds return to the normal prevailing patterns and this will put the theory to the test.

Its worth noting that every year i watch these forecasts and when the water starts to reach those magic numbers the reports on here start to show up where ever it hits land fall first.

[hugo]

It's complicated ...but sea temperatures would always come before wind direction for me too, and at this time of year I'm watching these:
http://www.marine.ie/Home/site-area/dat ... oy-network
Over here, Buoy M4 has to be well over 10C before things start really motoring.
Regards wind direction, I got into fishing via trout and the Curse of the Easterly ruled supreme there. Would that be because a cold spring easterly can quickly cool an enclosed body of water like a lake? Not so sure its really a main factor for the sea tho, too many other variables.
Then there's the Wind In Your Face syndrome: when you're fishing straight into a strong cold wind, you maybe dont put as much voodoo into it as on a balmy day...

[coamlaja]

was fishing the carpets in youghal in sept strong east wind caught 11 species cod to 4lb bass to 6lb mackerel, flounder 43cms coalfish 2.5lb
Pollack 3lb whiting ,eels, 5bearded rockling ,dogfish,and a sea scorpion. so not all easterlys are bad