Hunting and fishing weather

The barometer, the wind and the last of the light. What the fish do about it is up to the fish.

What this lens tells you

Hunt & Fish is one of six lenses on the forecast. Each reads the same weather for a different job. Use this one before a morning in a stand or an evening on the water.

It looks for thunder first. If thunderstorms are in the forecast for the next 6 hours, at a 40 percent chance or more, that is the headline, and it is said plainly. If not, the headline reads the barometer and tells you when the sun sets. Open "Why we say that" under the headline for the pressure, its trend, how far it has moved in three hours, and the wind with the direction it is coming from. The day chart marks last light.

One thing comes before all of it. When the National Weather Service marks a warning for the place as immediate, that warning is the headline, on this lens and every other.

It does not tell you where the deer are or whether the fish are biting. A forecast cannot know that, and this one does not pretend to.

See today's forecast through this lens.

The rule, in order

The headline comes from the first row of this table that is true. The words in quotes are the page's own.

The change is the pressure now against the oldest reading we hold from the last three and a half hours, so about three hours back. If there is no history to compare, the page takes the forecast pressure six hours ahead, compares it with now and halves the difference. Then the headline is reading a forecast, not a record. The rule is kept in hectopascals, so the inches are rounded.

In the United States the reading now is a Weather Service station's, when one has reported a pressure in the last two hours. Everywhere else, and for every older reading, it is Open-Meteo's figure, which comes from a weather model. So a small change can be the gap between a station and a model, and not the weather.

Unless there is thunder, the headline ends with the time the sun sets. A fast rise gets no headline of its own. The pressure card says "rising fast" and leaves it there.

"A front is close" is our own reading of a fast drop. It is not an official forecast of a front.

Under every headline this lens writes, thunder or not, the "Why we say that" box ends with two sentences that never change: "Fishing folklore about pressure is old and unproven. Shooting hours are set by your state, so check its rules before you rely on the sunset."

Does barometric pressure move deer, or fish?

We do not know, and the page does not claim it.

Two things on this lens are numbers from the weather services: the pressure, and how far it has moved in three hours. One thing is folklore: that deer or fish do anything about it. The page keeps them apart. When the headline repeats what anglers say, it says that anglers say it. The box under it calls the folklore old and unproven, every time. It is not proven, so nothing on the page is scored by it.

What a barometer is good for is weather. Our rule of thumb, and it is only that: falling pressure usually goes with an approaching system, and rising pressure with settling, clearing weather.

The pressure card draws the last 12 hours as a line, so you can see the trend and argue with it.

What is the best weather for deer hunting?

The page does not rank days for deer. It has no rule for what deer do in any weather, so it does not say.

What it gives a hunter is the part a forecast can know:

• Thunder in the forecast for the next 6 hours, said plainly.
• The wind speed now and the direction it is coming from.
• The pressure and its trend, with the folklore labelled.
• Sunset, and the time half an hour after it, with a note to check your state for hunting hours.
• A kit that starts with blaze orange.

What to make of a northwest wind and a falling barometer is your call. You know your woods. We only know the forecast.

Our agent interface does rate a stretch of hours for hunting, on wind, rain and thunder alone. Its lines are under the next heading.

Is it too windy to fish today?

This lens will not say yes or no. It has no wind limit. It gives the wind speed and the direction it is coming from. That is the wind now, not the wind this evening.

The wind card draws both on a compass. The arrow points the way the wind is going, and the words under it say where it is coming from. The card adds the gusts when they run more than 4 km/h (about 2.5 mph) above the steady wind.

The call is yours, because the forecast is for your area and not for your water. A sheltered creek and an open lake are different days in the same wind, and the page does not know which one you are on.

If you want a line drawn, an assistant can ask our agent interface. It rates a stretch of hours for hunting or for fishing. The rating drops to fair once the wind reaches 15 mph, and to poor at 25 mph. The wind it uses is the strongest hour in the stretch, taking the higher of the steady wind and 75 percent of the gusts. Thunderstorms in the forecast for any hour make it poor. The exception is in the United States: an hour the Weather Service gives a chance of precipitation under 25 percent is read as cloud, whatever it is called, so a slight chance of thunderstorms does not count against the rating. It is still a chance. A stretch that is wet for half its hours or more is fair at best. The rating is marked as our own reasoning, and it does not score the barometer.

Those lines are ours. They are not a safety limit for your boat or your water.

What is the best time to fish today?

The page does not pick one. It has no table of bite times and no rule for when fish feed.

What it marks is light. On this lens the day chart carries a strip labelled "Last light", from one hour before sunset to half an hour after it. The strip is about light. It is not legal shooting hours.

The light card gives the time golden hour begins, one hour before sunset, and the time half an hour after sunset. It also names the moon's phase and how much of it is lit. It makes no claim about what the moon does to fish.

On the other lenses that last time is labelled "Last light". Here it is labelled "Half an hour after sunset" and carries a note: "Check your state for hunting hours". Legal shooting hours are your state's to set. We do not state them.

When thunder makes the headline, the headline drops the sunset time. The light card still shows it.

An assistant can ask our agent interface for the best weather window for fishing on a given day. It scores each hour on the weather: how it feels, rain, thunder, wind, muggy air, darkness, and a chance of precipitation near freezing. Nothing in the score is about the bite.

What to wear and carry

The kit is picked by the same forecast. "Feels like" here is the average over six hours, starting with the hour you are in. "Wet" means rain, drizzle, thunderstorms, snow or a wintry mix, falling now or starting within 8 hours.

The pack list under the kit follows the same kind of rule:

• Hand warmers. It feels like 35°F or colder.
• Polarized glasses. The UV index reaches 3 or more in what is left of today, it is daylight, and it is not wet.
• Headlamp for the walk out. It is dark, or sunset is less than 3 hours away.
• Plenty of water. It feels like 80°F or warmer.
• Thermos. Nothing else made the list.

Blaze orange is on the list every day because the page does not know your season. Your state's hunting regulations say when it is required, and how much of it.

What the page does not know

• Your state's rules. Legal shooting hours, seasons and blaze orange requirements are set by your state. The page gives sunset, and half an hour after it, as clock times and nothing more. Your state's hunting and fishing regulations are the authority.
• What the animals will do. What the headline says about the bite is folklore, and labelled.
• Your water. The page has no waves, no current, no water temperature and no ice thickness. A forecast cannot see a lake, and it cannot tell you whether ice will hold.
• Your spot. The wind is for your area. It is not the wind in your hollow or behind your ridge.
• Lightning. The thunder line is a forecast, not a lightning detector. It speaks only when thunderstorms are forecast at 40 percent or more in the next 6 hours, so a quiet headline is not a promise. For warnings, the National Weather Service is the authority, and its warnings come before anything we say.
• Warnings outside the United States. The page shows official alerts for the United States only. Elsewhere, check your own country's weather service.

See it on today's forecast

Open the forecast with Hunt & Fish on. It is the same as picking the tab yourself.

An assistant can ask the same service directly. The page for agents says how.

The other lenses

• Run and ride. The best hour for a run or a ride, or a plain treadmill day.
• The commute. Rain and ice at both ends of the working day.
• Home and yard. Freezes, mowing windows and whether to skip the sprinklers.
• Build and finish. When to stain the deck, and when to hold off.
• Methodology. Where the data comes from, and where the page can be wrong.