First off, Happy Easter! I hope everyone enjoyed their Easter Sunday and are now about to sit down and enjoy a nice meal. Everyone has their own ways of celebrating the resurrection of the Almighty; Mine, as you may have guessed is spending some quality time on the river.
Given the winds were upwards of 20mph, it made for an interesting day on the water. Fly fishing and wind are like oil and water, they don’t mix. It scares many anglers off the water and for good reason. Any angler watching the wind howl is imagining how many times they will have to untie a nasty knot that somehow made its way up to the fly line. This image alone will make any angler hang em up before even opening the front door.
I personally don’t mind the wind. Granted I’m not rowing a boat which is whole other story. Now I’m not saying im a fan of the wind but it doesn’t threaten me. I have learned to cope with the wind and actually at times, use it to my advantage. The fish really don’t care about the wind in fact I think they use it as cover and therefore feel more comfortable. Its not as easy to spook fish with wind as it is when its calm.
When fishing in the wind the most important thing, in my opinion, is not giving the wind any opportunity to tangle my line. Lets be honest, getting tangled and un-tying wind knots are the biggest threat to keeping anglers off the water. Yes you have to deal with the constant blowing in your face, the high pitched whistling when you turn your head upstream and water splashing all over yourself when you walk in the water. But cmon, we’re fly fisherman, we don’t care about all that garbage if it means we have a chance of fighting a nice fish. Its hard fighting fish when your leader is a birds nest and thats what is keeping us off the water.
Don’t give the wind any opportunity tangle your line. Again, this is the most important thing to keep in mind. Get better at roll casting, tension hauling and double hauling for that matter. Change your angles of your cast. Let the wind blow your flies a little, this can sometimes get you a drift you wouldn’t normally try and who knows maybe that drift was all you needed to hook up with Mr. Hog Johnson. Then again it could also give you a drift over the snag from hell, so use this “technique†with extreme caution. Change the way you normally approach a certain hole. Adjust your rigs to better cast through the wind. Explore a little bit and you’ll find a hole that the wind just doesn’t seem to blow through. Most importantly, change your attitude. I know I already told you the most important thing but this is the most important thing #2, or maybe #1 depending on how you look at it. Don’t let the big bad wind keep you off the water. Adapt and adjust, the fish still gotta eat!
