Help with Inshore Coastal Weather

[Jeffonc]

I'm still pretty new to the coastal fishing scene - about half a dozen trips, mostly on days when I'm free and have somebody else who can go along. The only concession I've made to weather is just not to go if its going to be snotty. Sometimes that still leaves me with a whole lot of driving, a whole lot of casting, not much catching and a long drive back home to Raleigh. I'm looking to take a step up in my coastal fishing intelligence.

Can some folks give guidelines on how to choose the best fishing day over a 5 day coastal forecast period, with consideration to

• what you look for with wind, temp trends, cloud cover, moon phase, tides, season, etc..., particularly for inshore fishing
• what priority you place on each of those weather attributes
• which weather sites to look for specific info

If you can use specific examples, try the next 5 days. I had a vacation day scheduled for tomorrow, but my freshwater sensibility says that Thursday is going to be the best choice this week. Warmer night, some cloud cover. Not really sure which of the NE, E and N winds over the next several days is better than the other at the coast, or if different portions of the NC coast are going to be significantly better choices than others. Would love to hear how other people make these decisions.