3 Things To Look For When Fishing Moving Water

There are a lot of factors involved when trying to successfully catch fish. Between water temperature, seasonality, water levels, and clarity, it’s easy for even the best anglers to get a little confused.Add current into that equation and things can get downright frustrating. River systems, creeks, and tidal waters all present the additional challenge of moving water, which makes boat control, bait selection, and navigation much more difficult.Fortunately, current makes up for those difficulties by making the fish in general much more aggressive, consistent and predictable once you do find them.Here are some things to look for when fishing in current.

1. Current Seams Or Eddies

Swirling Eddie.
Most fish species are not physically built to survive and thrive while constantly fighting the current. Imagine walking down the street into a 50 plus MPH wind that never stopped. What would you do? You’d probably try to get out of the wind. Eddies are slack water “shadows” without current generated any time something juts out into the flow. Whether it be a wing dam, laydown, dock, bridge piling, or point - the current’s going to hit it and create an eddy either next to or behind it.Eddies give fish a place to rest out of the current while still giving them the opportunity to feed on anything the current brings their way.

2. Birds

Flock of Pelicans.
The current in river systems also concentrates baitfish into large schools. One of the primary predators of large schools of baitfish is birds, like seagulls, pelicans, and cormorants. If you pay attention to bird activity, you’re more likely to run into fish.Let’s say you’re fishing a series of barge tie-offs on a major river, and up ahead there’s a point. If that point has 10 or 20 seagulls on it, there’s probably a better chance that baitfish (and gamefish) will be nearby. Birds on river systems can go wherever they want, whenever they want. Most commonly they choose to be around baitfish.

3. Tributaries

Tributaries running into main river.
One of the most common places to find both baitfish and eddies is anywhere a tributary dumps into the main body of a river. The confluence of a tributary usually contains a scour hole, and at least one major eddy that extends from the point where the creek meets the river. These are major holding areas for fish of all species and should be fished any time they’re encountered.