April 21, 2013

Hurricane Fishing

On my way up to Teton Valley, I stopped and fished the Henry's Fork. It was not a great day for fishing as demonstrated by the number of people on the river -- none. I had the big water all to myself. Why? Because the wind was blowing a sustained 20 mph with gusts to 25 mph. No one but me wanted to put up with the wind.

The water level was good and the clarity was reasonable for this time of year. Snow melt has not really started yet.

I started with a 390 cm rod and #4 level line. As you can imagine, the line was blown all over the place. I was fishing at a right angle to the wind and it was strong enough to bend the rod! After a while I changed over to my wind line. This made it much easier to control the fly. As long as I kept half or more of the floating line portion on the water's surface I didn't have to compensate to the line being blown in the wind.

I only caught 4 fish, all rainbows -- but I really didn't stay that long. I fished for not quite 2 hours then decided there were other things I could be doing more profitably than fighting the wind. BTW, a drift boat with a guide and two clients did float by about 1 hour into my stay. They were throwing streamers.  I didn't see them hook up once.








I'll try it again another day when the winds not blowing, or at least when it's more manageable!








2 comments:

  1. Excellent blog very nice and unique information related to Hurricane Fishing. Thanks for sharing this information and images of fish.
     

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  2. This is my wind scneario almost year round (would say 80%), the
    other 20% it blows a bit faster! ;-)
    And that's why my rods are all on the stiffer side.
    Not to mention i do cast bulkier flies.
    There has to be much love to keep up with tenkara!

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