I remember hearing years ago as a kid that dawn/early morning and dusk are the best times for a fly fisherman to be on the river.

Reason given was that fish start to feed in the morning, and then again in the evning when spinners fall etc.

I had my worst days fishing in a few years yesterday when i took my 46 yr old sister fishing for the first time......from about 3pm-6pm.

Caught 4 tiny trout on dries, so saved a blank ....but my best guess was that the fish had probably been feeding since morning and although there were flies coming off, and some rises, they were v hard to catch, even on flies that i had had success on before.

So are afternoons generally not a good bet ?

Thanks all.......

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Irish by birth, Munster by the grace of God.

Yes I would tend to agree with that. Only exception I will make is that early season early afternoon is usually the best time. All to do with temperature more than any thing else.
Tight Lines

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"The Future's Bright The Future's Wet Fly"

at this time of year 3'ish is where the sun is at its highest ............,whereby early season the sun is lower and cooler !!!!

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WHEN YOU LEAVE THE RIVER, TAKE NOTHING, AND LEAVE ONLY FOOTPRINT'S!!!

THA CAN TELL A YORKSHIREMAN ,BUT THA CAN'T TELL HIM MUCH !!

No hard and fast rules, fish will feed when there is food not the time of the day.
Having said that it mostly depends what month it is and the weather.

On rivers March can be ten minutes if and when it heats up, April midday till late afternoon, May can be good morning till dark, June July and August you can expect nothing more than a few small daft things until the gloaming and September back to afternoon fishing.

There will always be an exception but the trick is to be on the water at the right time and just now i don't leave the house till about seven o'clock.

Clunk

As has been said, no hard rules. One river I fish actually fishes best in the afternoon - its generally well shaded and there is usually a better hatch in the afternoon than in the evening, then even if there is a rise in the evening the fish don't switch on - my guess is because they are pretty well fed by then. In fact I have wasted many an hour in the evening on that river, when I could have spent more productive time in the pub!

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Depends entirely on the weather, imo. If it's bright, hot and sunny, find a nice pub to ride out the afternoon. It if's overcast, muggy and warm, get to the river. the fish'll probably be feeding all day long.

Look at the sun. If your river flows more or less west to east then the fish will be facing into the sun in the afternoon. They don't like that very much so will tend to be absent from their usual holding spots. Find shady conditions and I'll bet there will a fish or two on the go somewhere.

The reverse also applies. In colder conditions fish where the sun is warming the water.

It's impossible to generalize. Everything depends on the season, species, water conditions, weather, and a list of other factors.

Just as you could say that in the summer it would generally be true that the afternoon is the lowest productivty part of the day, I'd say that in the winter and spring it's absolute prime time with the morning being the lowest productivity.

There are also many situations where the heat of the sun is required to produce an afternoon hatch.

Also there are some species that I've never noticed to be light sensitive one way or the other. Brook trout are huge opportunists and rarely pay attention to the time of day. Steelhead in the upper Great Lakes are all about water conditions and flow rates, if these are right then the time of day doesn't mattter.

Grouse

Had some of my best fly-fishing ever in mid-June during the afternoon, that's when the Mayflies hatch.

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How poor a thing, sometimes I find,
Will captivate a greedy mind - Isaac Walton.

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Years ago I became disillusioned with what is called the "Evening Rise" after experiencing many evenings when the "rise" never materialised.

If you ask me, I think that weather conditions, O2 content and water temperature play a bigger part in when trout will feed, rather than the time of day. However if you are after big fish eating brown trout, might I suggest that first light and last knockings are the best time to be on the water.