A nice day for everything but fishing

It may seem like perfect weather on Oneida, but the fish hate it.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – When it comes to weather, fish and humans couldn’t be more different.

“Fish are completely opposite from us,” said David Walker, professional angler on the Bassmaster Elite Series. “Today was sunny, slick and cool in the morning, which is nice weather for us. They hate it.”

‘They’ being the largemouth and smallmouth bass that Walker and 96 of the world’s best bass anglers were chasing after on Day One of the Ramada Championship.  The conclusion of the 2012 B.A.S.S. regular season on Oneida Lake got under way with picture perfect skies Thursday.

It wasn’t perfect for fishing.

“We just need something to happen,” said Steve Kennedy. “And I don’t know that anything is in the forecast.”

The Weather Channel calls for more of the same: sun, calm winds and temperatures pushing 90 degrees.

That’s bad news for Aaron Martens.

“I liked it when it was cool because I was focusing on smallmouth bass,” Martens said. “When it’s warmer, the largemouth are easier to catch. They get skittish when it’s cool.”

Also bad for Kennedy, who had his best day on Monday during the practice session, when the barometer dropped and a front moved across the lake. Those conditions were ideal for fishing and Kennedy capitalized.

“When those storms came through, I had a pretty good day,” Kennedy said. “My best five fish probably weighed 17 or 18 pounds. I didn’t get a lot of bites, but they were all big ones. The next day was post-frontal and I went five hours without a bite.”

Fishermen fear the days immediately following a good front. The high pressure and bluebird skies seem to do to the fish what overcast and rain does to humans: keeps them hunkered down inside.

According to Walker, those great, overcast days provide a risk and reward type of situation.

“Right before a front is the best conditions you can have,” Walker said. “But you pay the price the next day after the front. I actually like this beautiful weather we have. Any time you get stable weather, that’s a good thing. You may not have an incredible day, but at least during stable weather, you can consistently catch fish.”

Another residual from Monday’s higher winds was a change in the current. The strong west winds blew across the lake and pushed a lot of water to the opposite end. Late Tuesday and early Wednesday, when the winds died down, all that water came rushing back.

“It was flying back this way,” Kennedy said. “My boat was moving 2 or 3 miles per hour when I was fishing. Today, it was pretty much over. I’m fishing an area where the current funnels through and there was no current for most of the morning. Then it started moving in and out – it just never got right.”