Assault and Battery of the Wind

     I went fishing with an old friend the other day on the Henry’s Fork. The weather was overcast and cool; perfect for a Baetis mayfly emergence. Perfect, that is, except for the wind. By one o’clock in the afternoon what was forecast to be light turned out to be howling. The kind of wind that goes beyond testing your mettle. (Nothing terribly unusual for April in eastern Idaho, but certainly a day most reasonable anglers would—and did—sit out.)

My friend, however, doesn’t get the chance to fish here all that often. So we stayed put and watched. At two o’clock Baetis began emerging. Fish started to rise. We started to rig up only to find, alas, we were but one rod for two anglers. My friend had forgotten his.

Not a problem, I insisted. He would fish, I would watch. Working as he does as a fishing guide in the Big Hole valley, we both knew that he might not have another chance to fish here this year. I would be back many times over.

We entered the river below and downstream from some rising trout. Enough Baetis were emerging to allow the fish to feed steadily, but they weren’t. They chose to operate (as they often do) on their own terms, rising several times in short order, then sitting it out for varying lengths of time. They were also changing positions between rises. From experience I knew this kind of feeding was going to require repetitive, accurate casting. All the factors—fly placement, the timing of the cast, a drag-free drift—had to coincide, and that would take some doing.

Coming off a months-long stint in New Zealand, my friend started casting from about forty feet away. (This was too far; he was thinking about the skittishness of South Island trout.)  After a few casts I told him to hold up, we’ve got to get much closer. Accuracy in a shrieking wind is already a challenge; no point in compounding it by adding unnecessary distance to the equation. Carefully, we moved to less than twenty-five feet from a rising fish. I could sense we were pushing my friend's comfort limit, but I assured him this wasn’t too close to bother the fish. He's a fine caster, but we simply had to chop some distance to improve his accuracy.  (Fishing alone, I would have moved even closer.)

After a flurry of casts, I realized things were still not right. Although the shorter distance did aid his accuracy, my friend was still failing to make enough accurate casts. Most were being blown off to one side or the other, to the point where raising a fish was out of the question. Our problem was the angle from which we were fishing. It was too much across the wind to control the cast.

The angle that my friend had opted for was thoughtful considering the river’s currents and their effect on the drift—ordinarily the biggest issue here—but on this day those concerns paled in comparison to those of the wind. We had to deal with that first. I suggested that we move directly upwind of the fish. Doing so would immediately minimize the wind’s effect on our left/right accuracy problem, even if it hurt our drift (I could sense that the drift, even though compromised, would remain acceptable). This is a tactic I use all the time in big wind, and it is surprising how much easier it makes the fishing.

So move we did. Now my friend could get the fly over the fish with a degree of regularity. Some drifts were good, some not so good, but with the wind skittering the naturals anyways, an occasionally dragging fly didn’t hurt our chances. It still took a lot of casts for all the elements to come together, but come together they did—just often enough to provide us with a rewarding afternoon.

If you find yourself onstream when a vicious wind arises (or, heaven forbid, intentionally go out in one), these two tactics can really help. Get close to the fish, closer than you’ve ever dared, and get straight upwind from them. I think you’ll find success. And much of the time, you’ll find it alone.