Fishing in Lagos
Lagos · West African Coast & Guinean Forest · hardiness zone 13b
New here? Start with the fishing introNow
26°C · Overcast
Today
29° / 25°
Sun
06:33 – 18:35
Moon
Waning Crescent · anglers' solunar: good
Weather read at 11:38 p.m..
Writing your field guide — reading the forecast, the moon and the map…
In the water now · October
What's biting
The sport fish active near Lagos, Nigeria in October — where they hold, how to know one on the line, and the tactic that usually works. Check your licence and the current limits before you go.
FishYear-roundNile perch
Lates niloticus
A huge silver perch with a blue sheen, a dorsal fin cut deeply into spiny and soft halves, a rounded tail, and a dark eye ringed in bright yellow.
Where and how to catch it →Photo: Ioannis Magouras · CC BY 4.0
FishYear-roundNile tilapia
Oreochromis niloticus
Deep-bodied and grey-brown with faint bars, and the tell: regular dark vertical stripes right across the tail fin. Breeding males turn reddish, especially on the fins.
Where and how to catch it →Photo: Pål A. Olsvik · CC BY 4.0
FishMar–OctSharptooth catfish (barbel)
Clarias gariepinus
A long, eel-like body, a flat bony head, four pairs of whiskers, and one very long dorsal fin with no small fatty fin behind it. Dark grey to olive above, white below.
Where and how to catch it →Photo: Lukas Zangl · CC BY 4.0
FishMar–OctVundu
Heterobranchus longifilis
A massive olive-brown catfish with whiskers long enough to reach the belly fins, and a fatty (adipose) fin behind the dorsal that is almost as long as the dorsal itself.
Where and how to catch it →Photo: John P Friel · CC BY 4.0
- Photo coming soonFishYear-round
Giant African threadfin
Polydactylus quadrifilis
A big silver fish with a pointed, see-through snout, a bright yellow pectoral fin with four long white threads beneath it, and a deeply forked tail.
Where and how to catch it →
Photographs are research-grade observations from iNaturalist, each credited to its photographer. Ranges and timing are typical, not guaranteed — 87 species are covered across North America, Europe and Africa.
Behind this week's fishing
The day, the ground and the sky over Lagos
Run-off colours the water and brings food in. Fish the inflows and the seams.
Overhead · Lagos, Nigeria
The sky over the water
The two clocks nothing on the ground can argue with: the length of the day, and the phase of the moon.
The sun
12h 02m of light
Sunrise
06:33
Solar noon
12:34
Sunset
18:35
A month from now the day will be 0h 10m shorter. Enough light for steady growth.
The moon
Waning Crescent
15% lit · waning · day 26 of 29.5
- Next full
- Oct 26 · 20d
- Hunter's Moon
- Next new
- Oct 10 · 4d
- Darkest nights
Planting by the moon: Last quarter to new: a resting phase — weed, prune, harvest, turn compost and prepare beds.
Anglers' solunar rating: good — the tradition says fish feed hardest in the days either side of new and full, and around moonrise and moonset. The evidence is mixed; light and weather matter more.
Turn of the season
Winter solstice
Dec 21 · 76 days away
Frost is rare here — most years see none, or a night or two at most.
Next moons
- New MoonOct 10
- First QuarterOct 18
- Full Moon · Hunter's MoonOct 26
- Last QuarterNov 1
Right now · Lagos, Nigeria
Forces at work
Nothing here is a guess. Each of these is read from this week's forecast and this location's climate record, and each one is pushing the season one way or the other.
- Worth watching
The moon
Waning Crescent · 15%
Waning, 26 days old. Full moon in 19 days. Anglers' solunar rating: good (a tradition).
It moves water — in the sea, in a lake's edge, and, by long tradition, in the sap of a plant. Fish feed hardest on the days around new and full.
- Worth watching
Wind
8 km/h now · 13 peak
Calm. Good for spraying, for transplanting, and for spotting a rise on flat water — but calm bright days push fish deep.
It pollinates corn and grasses, dries soil, breaks stems — and it decides where the bait, and therefore the fish, end up.
- Working for you
Rain
39.8 mm / 7 days
39.8 mm across 7 days. About right; leave the hose coiled.
Sets the pace for everything: germination, fungal fruiting, slug nights, and how a river runs for the next three days.
- Working for you
Soil warmth
28.4 °C
Warm enough for beans, corn, squash, cucumber and transplanted tomato and pepper. Roots run hard at this temperature.
Seeds read soil temperature, not the calendar. Six centimetres down is where the decision gets made.
- Quiet right now
Day length
12h 02m
Losing about under a minute of daylight a day.
The one thing weather can't change. Plants count photoperiod to decide when to bolt, bulb, flower and go dormant.
- Quiet right now
Frost
366 frost-free days
Frost is rare here. Coldest night in the next week: 24.3 °C.
The hard edge of the growing season. Ice inside a leaf ruptures its cells — one night ends a tomato and sweetens a parsnip.
Read and watch with your kids
All the books and videos for Lagos →Stories about where you live
The fishing note for Lagos, every week
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