We only get to fish for bass on the days that our schedules allow. Rain or shine, wind or calm, the days we get are the days we have and we must make many adjustments in order to be productive on the water. Maybe it’s weather that makes the bite difficult not in the aspect that bass have stopped biting, but in the realm of the wind has made it difficult to feel your bait much less a strike when it happens.
To solve the wind whipping your line and preventing you from affectively working your baits, there are some things you can do. Using heavier baits, different lines, and the way you position your rod, can all help improve your catching ability for a day that is better suited for flying a kite more so than bass fishing.
If you have a pattern going that utilized a specific light weight bait, say a senko, or light Texas rig or even swimming a light jig, the wind can really play havoc with your ability to be productive with these baits. The first thing you can try is keeping your rod tip close to the water, thus keeping the majority of your line in the water. This will prevent the wind from building a bow in your line and dragging your bait across the lake, like the kite I mentioned earlier. The only drawback to this is with the line in the water, hook sets can be difficult. The upside, with your rod pointed at the water; you can move a lot of line during a hookset. It takes practice but by keeping your line in the water can be an effective way to combat the effects of wind.
Changing your line can also help with wind issues. Braided line is very difficult to work light baits on when the wind is whipping. The flip side to that is, it’s easier to detect a strike with lines that have no or very little stretch; making braid a good choice. Fluorocarbon lines, fall into the category of “best of both worlds”. Fluorocarbons are not as effected by wind, and they claim low stretch allowing for better detection of bites. Monofilaments will be least effected by wind, however, are very difficult to feel strikes with in such conditions. With Monofilaments, if you have excess line out because of the wind putting a bow in your line, a hookset is nearly impossible.
A person can argue line types back and forth in his head until he’s dizzy and falls over. There is not perfect scenario. Take braid, it blows around in the wind horribly; however, it doesn’t stretch. Keeping your rod tip at the surface of the water will prevent the wind issues and with no stretch making a hook set is going to be more powerful than with Fluorocarbon or monofilament. You have to take your bait choice into consideration.
I fish a lot of jigs and Texas rigged soft plastics, and my first line of defense against the wind with these baits is to use heavier weighed baits. This make pitching them against the wind easier. If it’s so windy I have to upsize, the fish are usually going to be more active and chase a bait that’s falling faster anyway; hence it’s my first choice in combating wind. Heavier baits make it much easier to feel the bottom even on windy days, and the surface wave action lets you get away with more splash on casts without spooking fish. To me a windy day “can” be a win win situation for the bass fisherman.
Just some thoughts on wind and what we can do to prevent it from wrecking our only chance to get on the water. Don’t complain about the wind, make some changes to your presentation and you might find the bass fishing is very good on those windy days.
Get the Net it’s a Hawg
Mike Cork
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