Whether you are an amateur angler or a professional deep sea fisherman, knowing what time to fish is a critical skill of successful fishing.  The following are some useful tips that will help you figure out what is the best time of day to test your luck and see if the fish are biting.

1. Evaluate the amount of sunlight. On hot sunny days, fish move to cooler, deeper waters to stay comfortable. Cloudy days improve fishing since the clouds diffuse sunlight. 
2. Study daily warming trends. Morning sun warms the shallows, creating more comfortable water temperatures for fish to feed. Late morning is best when the sun has had more of a chance to warm the shallows. 
3. Learn at which depth fish are found. Fishing is more successful near the surface only in early morning and late afternoon when cooler temperatures and lower light levels allow fish to cruise the shallows for meals. 
4. Monitor storm and weather patterns. Warm fronts cause surface water temperatures to increase and often put fish into a feeding mode on or near the warm surface. Fishing slows during and after a storm or cold front. 
5. Check daily tide information in the newspaper or local fishing shop when saltwater fishing. The best fishing is almost always on a rising or falling tide since they cause bait to move and provoke active feeding among coastal fish. 

Fishing during a light summer or spring rain is often successful. The shower helps hide anglers from the fish since the rain breaks up the view that the fish has through the water surface. Rain also washes insects and bait into the water, creating a feeding binge for fish. 

Leave the water immediately if there is lightning or any possibility of lightning.  Heavy rains and high water levels can create rapids, waves and dangerous fishing conditions.

Beyond a certain age, nothing stops fun on the water better than unexpected soakings, suddenly violent waves, or any activity that can lead to a serious risk of falling out of the boat. And few events can end a good time on the water as precipitously as being hit by lightning.

These are all summertime risks, but they can vary greatly in degree of probability depending on your knowledge of – and respect for – the weather.

There may have been a time, way back before Odysseus, when ignorance of the elements was an excuse for mishap or disaster. But incredible modern-day refinements in satellite-based forecasting and communications technology have removed the last traces of an alibi for being caught on the water unawares. These days, if you didn’t know what to expect it was because you didn’t ask – or you just didn’t take the time to learn.

Ask where? Learn what?

The Weather Channel is a good place to start. Along with its local forecasts, it provides good radar tracking, notification of small craft advisories, and other pertinent information that boater’s can use. In most coastal areas, VHF broadcasts provide accurate, timely, local marine data on wind direction and speed, temperature, wave height, tides, and special advisories of both long-term and sudden changes. In the summertime, this service includes notification of current thunderstorm activity along with estimates of its future probability.

In addition, with direct downloads from weather-mapping satellites, along with your VHF radio, CBs, ship-to-shore, portable AM-FM radios and cellular telephones, you’re only a moment away from everything you should ever need to know.

And that’s not all. For the technology-deficient, toy-deprived or electronically unprepared, there is another reliable resource in the form of accumulated lore and common sense. Since thunderstorms usually travel from west to east, boaters should keep an eye on the western sky. Calm usually does precede a storm, so can a mackerel sky. And yes, red skies at morning are a sailor’s warning.

If you don’t have a phone, can’t hear the crackling on the AM radio and there is haze in the path of the roiling clouds, one of the best indicators of increased electrical activity in the area is still the hair on your forearms or on the back of your neck: when it starts to rise, it’s well past time to get moving.

You say you shave your arms and there isn’t enough hair left on your head to throw a shadow? Well, when caught in foul weather, you should immediately put on your life jacket, reduce the speed of the boat and head for the nearest lee shore or safe harbor. Point the bow at a slight angle into the waves, keeping your passengers low and near the midship point to reduce the risk of battering from the seesaw motion of the boat.

If the engine fails, anchor by the bow or, in deep water, deploy a sea anchor (anything that will slow your drift with underwater drag, such as a bucket or an empty bait box) from the stern.

Prayer is permitted. Learn from the experience.

Left and right – port and starboard – banks are named relative to a boats direction heading downstream. The left or port bank is the one on your left as you are heading in the direction that the river flows.

There are some exceptions to this rule. For example, on the New York State Barge Canal System the starboard side is the northern side, or the right side if you are heading from Waterford to Buffalo, New York.

On the IntraCoastal Waterway, the green marks would be toward the sea, thus the saying, “Green to Sea..”

Your best bet is to always check the charts. It would be a major mistake to go on the wrong side of a buoy and get in trouble.

Fishermen have many methods to tie a fishing knot. This article describes step by step how to tie three of the most commonly used fishing knots. Practicing these knots until you are proficient is a great way to make sure that your line is secure so you do not lose the trophyfish you are fighting.

Arbor Knot
1. Thread the line around the reel arbor. 
2. Tie an overhand knot around the line itself. This is looping around once then back through. 
3. Tie a second overhand knot in the tag end. This is behind the original knot and keeps the line from slipping through the first. 
4. Make sure both knots are pulled tight. Cut off the excess line behind the tag. 
5. Slide the first overhand knot down the line to tighten it around the reel arbor. 

Clinch Knot
1. Thread the line through the eye of the hook. 
2. Double back, or loop around, the line five times. 
3. Pass the end of the line through the first loop. Then pass it through the large loop that you just created when you passed the end of the line through the first loop. 
4. Draw the knot into shape gently. This is after you pass the line back through the first loop. If you do this incorrectly you will have to start over. 
5. Slide the coils down tight against the eye of the hook. The knot is complete and will look like a noose. 

Trilene Knot
1. Thread the line through the eye of the hook then double back through the eye again. 
2. Hold the hook in your left hand and standing line in your right. 
3. Loop the tag end around the standing line six times. 
4. Feed the tag end through the loop from step 1. 
5. Tighten the knot gently by pulling the tag end and the standing line. You can moisten the line to help tighten the knot. Cut any excess off the tag end down to 1/8 of an inch. 

Have some patience. You will probably not make a good knot on your first attempt.  Have an experienced fisherman help you out. The owners of local bait and tackle shops will usually help you a great deal. 

Careful with the hooks! It does not feel good to get stabbed with a hook that has a barb on it.

Death by choking known by EMTs and medical examiners as “Cafe Coronary” because it mimics so many characteristics of a heart attack, also has some important similarities to drowning. The victim gasps for air, becomes cyanotic (turns blue) with insufficient blood oxygen, and often grasps at his or her chest to relieve the pain of pressure on the lungs. Death is usually preceded by unconsciousness.

Now the similarities go further to include the Heimlich maneuver, for the past three decades a standard emergency response to choking and more recently adapted as an effective first-aid treatment to reverse the tragedy of drowning. In 27 incidents reported by the National Pool and Water Association for one recent year, an astonishing 24 drownings were averted by the use of the Heimlich maneuver alone; only three had to be given CPR, and every one of the victims survived.

However, there can be a couple of big differences between what happens in the environment of a swimming pool and in a lake or open ocean. For one thing, most pool water is treated with chemicals which can be extremely caustic, so the faster such water can be removed from the lungs, the lower the risk of subsequent pneumonia or long-term damage. In either setting, time is obviously of the essence.

Probably the biggest difference between the two settings is that the Heimlich maneuver, CPR or any other life-saving response is far easier to administer when the victim has been removed from deep water to the shallow end of the pool or to dry land. But even in the middle of a lake or on the open ocean, it’s still a viable option that can make the difference between life and death.

In either setting, the rescuer takes a position behind the victim, passes his arms under the victim’s arms, joining his hands about halfway between the victim’s navel and breastbone, just below the rib cage. He makes a fist of one hand with the thumb toward the victim’s abdomen, then using both hands drives his fist sharply inward and upward toward the solar plexus. This action is repeated as often as necessary – typically four or five times – until no more water comes out of the subject’s mouth.

This is obviously a lot easier on land than in the water. When the rescuer is swimming, a flotation device should be wedged between his chest and the victim’s back to keep the body in an upright position with the face safely clear of the water. The rescuer also should take care that his own head is out of the way if the victim should suddenly rear back during this exercise, a not uncommon part of the gag reflex associated with the coughing up of water.

The Heimlich maneuver doesn’t always result in immediately restored breathing even on land. In the water, the problem can be that the airway is closed due to the patient being bent forward; the solution is to reposition the flotation device further down the back so the person’s head is forced backwards and the airway opens.

Once on deck, the victim should be laid on his back with his head turned to one side. The rescuer should wrap his leg’s around the victim’s opposite thigh, and repeat the maneuver until water no longer comes from the mouth or until breathing is restored. If the patient still fails to respond, check the pulse and use rescue breathing or CPR.

In describing this technique in Sea magazine, Captain Victoria Sandz offers a frontal compression approach – similar to the above but focused on the center of the breastbone rather than below the ribs – when the victim is pregnant or too large for the rescuer to embrace effectively from behind.