Ontario Shore Fishing Forum

Being a city-based shore angler, I often fish off vertical concrete harbour/quay walls or piers that face a fairly well-defined direction. In these cases, when the shore/wall faces upwind (eg the downwind side of a quay), there's always a mat of floating plant matter etc covering the first few meters of surface. If you're fishing off the upwind side of the quay facing downwind, the surface of the adjacent water is relatively clear. The latter position is of course better from the perspective of being able to move your tackle around freely and not dragging big wads of greenery.

My question is, does the weed-choked downwind side of a waterbody have advantages for actual fishing success over the upwind side? Does the same wind that moves floating junk to one also move forage to the same side and attract fish? In other words, should I suck it up and fish the annoying floating mats for the sake of better chances?

For purposes of argument let's assume that I'm talking about gentle enough winds to not seriously impact casting, and that actual living weed structure is equal in all spots.

How about casting from the upwind side of shore, toward the downwind clump of weed, so that you fish the edge of the weed clump?

Seriously, if there are bigger predators patrolling, they are more than likely to be around the edges...instead of hiding directly under a big mat of weed...unless you are talking mid day.

Wind driven weed mats are usually disorganized and tangled. There are usually very few holes within the mat where you may pitch lures through the mat. It's completely unlike a weed bed where growth is more organized and there are gaps and holes. As such, from personal experience, I have much less success trying to reach the fish that may or may not sit under the mat. However, I have more success making presentations around the edges of the weed mat.

Prey always look for cover. A wind driven mat of of weed is great cover, especially for minnows or juvenile sportfish. They will either travel with it, or loosely associate with it. As such, the presence of prey does attract predators.

Also, don't forget that wind also drive what we often don't see...the plankton and zooplankton that smaller fish feeds on. So even if there may not be cover, if wind pushes microorganisms against a shoreline and concentrate them there, you can be sure that the foraging species will not be far away either.

It's good to cast into a shoreline with the wind on your back

When targeting bottom feeders from shore, always try to fish with the wind in your face.
Failing that, fish the shoreline that received the majority of the wind over the last few days. (i.e: wind blowing from the west last three days, I'm fishing the westward facing shoreline).

Clearly other factors play a role, but yeah, wind is major.