Get past the horseplay right at the start of the most recent Orvis podcast (the player should appear below), and it’s a pretty good listen. Fly fishing in the wind is one of my least favorite activities, and I’ve heard literally mounds of advice over the years. Some of it, frankly, seemed pretty bad.
Orvis has avoided all that in this podcast, but I’m looking for the Undergrounders to throw down their ideas.
Here, Tom Rosenbaeur and Perk Perkins advise anglers to not push the rod harder and don’t fight the wind, all of which is transparently good advice.
He and Rosenbauer also offer up a few non-controversial ideas, including:
- Keep casts low to the water (less windy there)
- Use a Belgian cast (a constantly loaded elliptical cast) to keep the line moving (haven’t tried it for wind, but it’s handy when you’re casting heavy flies like streamers)
- Use shorter leaders and smaller flies
- Cast a shorter rod
Interestingly, Perkins suggests he does just as well with a mid-flex rod in the wind as he does with a tip flex – something I did once experience fishing 6wts on a lake. I don’t get it, but it was true for me.
Is that simply because moderate tapers suit my casting style, or is there something else? (Discuss)
The Chainsaw Death Match Part
Finally, we get to the good stuff; Lefty Kreh has famously suggested underlining a fly rod by one line weight on windy days, apparently so you can throw tighter loops and generate faster line speeds.
And yes, I tried that once. The results weren’t pretty.
Apparently, Perkins and Rosenbauer don’t think much of the idea either, and in the interest of fomenting an Industry-Wide Death Match between Big-Name Heavy-Hitters, I’ve gotta ask the Undergrounders: has anyone else actually tried this, and had it work (or not)?
In my case, I’d suggest the lighter line loaded the rod less and offered less mass to “boss” the fly.
Perhaps If I’d been throwing a midge, it wouldn’t have mattered, but I was throwing a #14 parachute during a Callaebatis hatch, and eventually switched back to my original 6wt line (the rated line).
I’ve heard of anglers opting to overline a rod by one line weight on a windy day, so clearly, there’s ample room here for violent disagreement discussion.
Obviously, there’s plenty of room to screw around with all this stuff, but after years of mucking about, I simply fish a 6wt when it’s windy. Sometimes the simple solution is the best.
Where do the Undergrounders land on the subject of wind, fly rods, fly lines, and the prospect of an industry blood bath stuff?
Recent comments