Ever since I got my fancy watch a couple of years ago for my birthday I have been obsessed by watching the barometric pressure change from hour to hour and day to day – I have been trying to link the changes to not just the weather (which is obvious) but to whether fish are going to feed or not.
I have a Suunto Vector X-Black Negative Face Watch – you can buy it and others like it over at Outdoor GB
It is a sweet piece of kit which apart from being a watch also includes a compass, barometer, altimeter and increases your ultimate sexiness by a factor of ten. One of those was a half truth however I shall let you guess which one.
The altimeter has been good when I have been out hill walking as well as watching the numbers go up and down when zipping up and down in elevators in the high flats that I so often visit.
When fish are just nor responding we anglers like to come up with just about any old excuse and quite often we talk about the air pressure – the theory proposes that a dropping air pressure brings on feeding activity, rising pressure turns the fish off feeding, high pressure results in the fish moving to shallower water, and low pressure results in fish moving to deeper water. That is the standard theory however I have often found the opposite to be true – for example just before all this rain we had a period of high pressure and then the next day the pressure dropped – on the last night I fished for trout it was pretty tricky however I suppose that could have been something to do with the lower temps as well. Sometimes I think that the theory holds more weight in deep water like lakes or ponds rather than rivers as it may affect the movements of trout more.
However, I reckon it may just all be connected with the wind and rain that is connected to the changing of air pressure rather than the pressure itself.
Still, it is a nice Suunto watch and it is fun to watch the pressure change and predict what weather will be approaching.
For the record – it looks like more rain!
At those prices Alistair it should include a fish finder. lol
i seem to remember hearing that pike are sensitive to changes in barometric pressure and are thought to feed before the weather changes for the worse
I think mine was around £140 Ronnie – like I say it was a birthday present pre kids 😉
Bill – aye, I noticed when there was dramatic changes in pressure the fish would just totally go off – although sometimes it brought the wind and when it was windy with big waves I would get a lot of Pike in funny places!
you can get these watches for under £120
Thanks Jim!