Wind Direction

I can hear Joel Richardson in my head from fishing at Belews with him once... "The wind is your friend!" I fished once with Maynard Edwards on High Rock, and he chanted the old "West is best, East is least, South blows it in their mouth, and North- brave fellows go forth." Having that in my head, I have had some craptacular days on a West wind, some great days on a North wind, and well... I don't recall an East wind, it's always NE or SE shifting to South, but almost never out of the due East.

Personally, I hate the wind. I tolerate it because I have to, and I have heard all the people who love the wind chime in on how it concentrates the bite, but.... I'm a soft plastics guy and the wind just hampers my bread and butter tactic. I'll catch 'em any way I can and I have done just as well on windless days as windy ones for my style of fishing, sometimes better. I think it just depends on what you like and how you like to fish it. Guys who fish a lot of moving baits I find typically like the wind, but I guess I'm just the weird one. I don't care for it.

I will try to capitalize on it if I think wind is moving water across points or structure and creating current; I don't ignore it, I just don't like it. I guess I just take whatever direction it's blowing and make the most of it.

Neilslure said:

I can recall alot of really good days right after the front and some bad days before the front. I dont buy all that mess about fronts, you may not catch them in the same place you did yesterday but once you find them it can be a great day. Fronts change the weather and water conditions, when those change, the fish will too. IMO a front is just an excuse for the guys who dont adapt when their fish disappear.

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I have also had good days after a front, and your point is well taken. My comments were written as a general guideline not as a reason to stay home. You fish when you can and do the best you can given the conditions you fish. I agree that at any given time there are fish biting regardless of conditions if you can find them and figure them out. Those days when conditions are tough and you catch fish anyway are some of the most rewarding. Solving the puzzle is half the fun of fishing.

That said, why would you want to have to change patterns if you don't have to? Why would you want to go outside your comfort zone if you don't have to? I guess what I'm saying, is that if fronts have no impact on fishing, then you would have no preference between a day with N wind and bluebird skies over a cloudy day with S wind all other things being equal? I would take the clouds and S wind every time and I think most others would too. That is the point I was trying to make.

When you learn to catch fish in any condition, you gain confidence, techniques and skills that make you a better than average angler.

It all depends on how much a person really wants to fish.

In tournaments, we have to fish the conditions of the day. So far, I've never been in a tournament that was cancelled for weather. I have fished with snow dumping over an inch on the boat and having to scrape ice off the steering wheel to have a good grip. I have fished when it was so hot and calm that the shade felt cold.

All that experience has made me a pretty decent bass angler, I think, and I have utmost confidence that I will, not might, catch bass every time I go out.

For some, the only days they can fish are their off from work days...and the weather may not be the best. They can either hold off and miss yet another opportunity to fish or they can go and still enjoy the outdoors and learn a little more about the fish they are chasing.

I vote to "go"!


To fish is human!