Thursday, May 27, 2010

Wind, weather make for tough fishing


Flyfishing has been a challenge so far this spring thanks to Mother Nature. She must be angry at fishermen, for some reason.
Weekends generally were crummy. Weekdays weren't much nicer.
Wind is the major culprit. We experienced many days of sustained winds in the 30mph range with gusts into the 40 mph velocity. Lately, several days produced gusts of more than 60 mph.
Along with the wind comes the wind chill, which drops tolerable spring temperatures into the chilly range. When you're around water, or wading in it, the wind chill feels even colder.
Trying to cast in those conditions is practically impossible, even if you can get the wind at your back. Fortunately, at one local lake, you don't have to cast far to get into fish.
Earlier in the spring at this lake, I was wearing chest waders to get farther out into the water with my casts. I caught a few fish, but not many. When I told Sam about it, he said that I was wading right where the fish were cruising close to the dam. He never wades at this lake and always does well fishing from shore.
So I changed tactics and became a landlubber. It worked a lot better than wading. My best outing there was nine chunky rainbows in several hours of afternoon fishing. Many fish hit just slightly more than a rod-length from shore.
Another benefit of shore fishing is that you can sit down and relax while waiting for the next strike. It's also a lot easier to drink beer when you're not wading chestdeep in cold water.

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