Whenever you’re planning a fishing trip you want to know what the weather will be like. It helps you know what to pack. You also probably want to know what the weather will be like tomorrow or even the next day when you are at the lodge. We’ve come a long way from the days of printing off the extended forecast, bringing it with you, and hoping it doesn’t change.
With our internet access at the lodge, we can keep tabs on the weather for you so you don’t have to. Actually we do a little more than that. You may remember we started with our “Today’s Weather” board which provided some key metrics such as the high and low temps, wind strength/direction, and chance of precipitation.
Being a stats lover, I dove in a little deeper this year. The new board features the original info for the entire week in addition to cloud coverage %, sunrise/sunset, barometric pressure, and best fishing times. So far it has been fun getting a feel for how the pressure affects fishing and seeing if Outdoor’s Canada best fishing times are holding up. It’s a bit to early to tell, but we are seeing some positive correlations. We update the board daily which helps since the extended forecast changes so frequently.
If you’re checking the weather prior to your trip, here are the sites we like to use:
Extended forecast:
http://www.intellicast.com/Local/Forecast.aspx?location=CAXX0606
Still prone to daily changes for later in the week, but seems to be the most reliable of the major weather sites we have monitored.
Barometric pressure:
http://www.worldweatheronline.com/Red-Lake-weather/Ontario/CA.aspx
We convert from millibars to inches of mercury since that measurement is used more in the U.S. This site is also a good cross check for Intellicast.
Best Fishing Times:
http://outdoorcanada.ca/fishing/fishing-times
This site calculates the best fishing times each day based on the position of the sun and the moon. We post the major time for the a.m. and the p.m. which is deemed to be productive an hour before and an hour after the listed time. We are closest to the Central Region – Winnipeg.
Let us know what weather sites you like to use!