Adapting to the Wind and Fly Fishing Conditions

The wind has been crazy the last few days. I hope wind is not part of the new normal. Well my buddy Larry always says, "Adapt and overcome!" Well going out on bigger bodies of water has not been an option lately. I hope this wind settles but wind can also create some opportunities! Yesterday and the day before we just tucked in to spots to fly fish out of the wind. Our usual tactics worked a bit but we need to change up and adapt. I had a thought about wind lanes and deflections close to windy spots. Yesterday, Colin, Murray and I had to figure out the puzzle. We put the chironomid and blob box away and started using balanced flies, specifically a Tokaryk Special. We looked for wind deflections and started to fly fish along the edges of these deflections. Our thinking was food will move along the windy areas and the fish will move along the edges of these windy areas and feed. We had a decent amount of success with this tactic. We also set up shallow and cast out to the edges of drop offs. We set up fishing 6 feet down with a Tokaryk Special. We did catch some fish with blobs and small chironomids, but it was not on fire. We did see lots of caddis and damsel adults. Those two pieces of information will definitely be part of future fly fishing days! Fish were definitely just below the surface cruising and feeding at times. Stripping damsels and caddis nymphs will be something to keep in mind. I sure hope the wind settles down. Yesterday, we had our lake to ourselves. I am sure wind discouraged many!