Casting Into the Wind

by Rene J. Hesse

I hope you and your family have fared well after the storms that have impacted so many lives. Events like these help keep things in perspective, don’t they? What’s important in life comes to the front of our minds when faced with these kind of tragic events. Fly fishing usually is last on the list of things we focus on with a hurricane.

However, when I had a family reunion planned last September in the Florida Gulf Coast, we had to look at the storms and decide if we can fish in that weather. Our family vacations have always revolved around fishing. Even though it was Mom’s 93rd birthday, I spent more time tying flies and planning on how to catch reds and specs’ off the jetty than picking out a gift for her. Mom would understand. So when my brother said, ‘I hope you can cast in the wind’, my mind ran through the six or so wind casts to use, and I will describe one of them here.

When we are casting into the wind, we change some of the variables of a fly cast. One variable is the trajectory. Tilt the back cast up and the forward cast down, right to the target, not out and over it. The wind will push the fly back at you if you don’t tilt the cast from high in back to low in front.

Another thing to vary is the power applied to the cast. Let the wind help the line extend on the back cast, but combat the wind on the forward cast by increasing the line speed. To aid in line speed, use a haul. The haul is simply pulling on the line with your line hand and is generally done at the same point in time and rate that you are accelerating the rod through the casting stroke.

If you practice this before you go fishing, it will become more natural when the wind is blowing in your face.