The sun is the main driver of life. It dictates everything we experience and do in life, from length of day to hot vs. cold, depending on the time of year. This is common knowledge to everyone, yet overlooked by many. I still get stunned looks when I talk to anglers about the sun and the role it plays in patterning catfish.

I never really thought about it when catfishing until I fished with Jake Bussolini, a retired engineer who was writing a series of fishing books in 2011. He is a staunch defender that the science of the sun—its intensity and visibility—is the key to successful or unsuccessful fishing.

In the years since my few days fishing with Jake, I have paid more attention to the sun and how it relates to catfishing. I have also documented how the barometer affects catfish, and there is a correlation.

First, understand how the sun affects fishing at the most basic level. As winter becomes spring, Earth turns closer to the sun and the days get longer. While this happens, there are more heating hours each day. The Earth warms up, and eventually the water warms.

As fall becomes winter, the sun gets further from the Earth, and we experience fewer warming hours, bringing in colder temperatures and eventually winter.

Just knowing this, and how the normal catfish season progresses, you can see that the sun is the key to getting the season underway. Some years, other conditions play into when it actually happens, and it may be a few weeks early or late, but it will typically happen at about a same time every year.

The sun heats things, spurring the spawn, telling fish to get to the nest. As the days get noticeably shorter in late summer and fall, the shorter heating hours start the water cooling, even if the daytime highs are still very nice. Trees are very similar. As the sun heats up the Earth, trees start to set buds, then leaves. It is so similar that trees can be a great indicator of where the catfish are in the season.

Likewise, lack of late summer sun turns into fall, cooling the water and telling fish to start getting ready for the winter ahead. At the same time, trees begin to turn colors and leaves start to fall.

Sun and catfish, day to day

One thing I have learned about catfish and the sun: Catfish are not afraid of sun when they want to feed. If they are in a feeding mood, they will move as shallow as one foot of water to rest and feed, throwing out any inkling that catfish like it dark. This is possible, but not the norm.

That is a rarity most of the time, and the sun does play a role in dictating how catfish feed. If the day is cloudy with light wind, catfish do tend to be more active than they are when the sun is high and hot.

We have all heard of the dog days of summer, and it can be real. When there are many days of hot sun and clear skies, catfish will sit tighter during the high-sun hours. This usually means that they will be in the deeper part of holes or under snag piles for shade. Just because they are there does not mean they will bite, either.

Most of the time, you can sit on a spot, keeping bait in front of them, and they will eventually take it. It just takes a little more time than anglers would like sometimes. Once the shadows start from a sinking sun, or even when a cloud comes by, providing a shadow for just a few seconds, it can spur a bite.

In rivers, when the fish want to feed but not sit tight in holes or under snags, they sometimes post themselves at the fronts of holes, right on the riffle as it dumps in. This is an opportune spot to hide, get some shade from the riffle and find an easy meal. Fishing the edges of these riffles as they dump into deeper holes is always a great place to start finding active fish in the system.

Barometer and sun

The barometer is also a direct link to the sun. In the simplest terms, when the barometer is high, the sky tends to be clear, and the sun out and bright. As the barometer is falling, the clouds start to move in. When the barometer bottoms out and the low-pressure front pushes through, it is usually cloudy, or even cloudy and rainy.

All of these can be indicators to where and how to catch catfish. When the barometer is falling and it gets partly cloudy, blocking some of the sun, catfish know, and will get more aggressive, feeding right up until the front pushes though and the bite might fall off.

As the barometer starts to rise after the front, again partly cloudy or with the sun starting to peak out, catfish are usually more sluggish, sitting tight, out of the current.

The best condition is stable weather or stable sun. The more that similar days are together, the more the weather will produce the best fishing. It doesn’t matter if it is clear days with sun or cloudy days without sun; the fish will always bite better when it is stable.

The sun can be the determining factor of all things and all seasons. We, as anglers, simply need to learn to understand what it is telling us and adjust our tactics accordingly.

If you enjoy catfishing, you’ll find suggestions for locations and techniques in every issue of MidWest Outdoors, available by subscribing on our website.