Wind Wind Wind

[MuskieFever]

Anyone else as frustrated as I am?!

[Craigums]

I've only seen one day (Saturday) were the wind was above 15mph and I got stuck doing yard work. Otherwise it hasn't been to bad for me... What kind of boat do you have?

[MuskieFever]

A northwoods 192 pro tourney (19' I/O). My dads boat. It's alright but could definitely use an upgrade. No bow mount electronics, just the console that I had to turn 180 degrees and keep looking back. Long story short I've been trying to work on deep water fishing and the last 3 times I've gotten out it's been blowing around 15mph. Doesn't help that the lake I'm fishing has it's best structure mid lake... Sick of getting blown around.

[TB Basser]

It's been blowing every weekend. I'd rather have Rain than the wind.

[LegattoAD]

Could try a drift sock..? It would at least slow you down.

[bassfshin24]

Yeah it's been pretty annoying for me as well. Been trying to work a lot of deep weed edges and deep rocks and hard to stay on the spot when the wind is blowing 10-20mph in the middle of a decent sized lake.

[RK]

Yeah, it's been windy up north for sure. I dealt with it all weekend too. Growing up on the edge of the prairie you kind of get used to it after a while. Windy a lot of the time where I grew up.

Couple ideas on how to deal with it:

- Especially if you're fishing offshore spots, marker buoys are invaluable. Electronics and GPS are great and all, but going analog can make life a lot easier just to keep you oriented on a spot. I'll toss out a buoy right where my boat is parked when I catch a fish, and then line up a reference point on shore. Or before you fish a spot go around and mark the stuff you really want to hit - points, inside turns, etc., with buoys. When you unhook a fish, have to retie or whatever, instead of wandering around trying to get back to where you were, you can just zip back to your marker.

- For stuff like jigs and jigworms, fluorocarbon is a huge help because it sinks, so it doesn't blow around on the surface nearly as much as mono. Frankly it's the main reason I use it for stuff like jigworms.

- Don't fight it if you don't have to. Go bow to it as much as you can. If that means you have to fish some spots "inside out" (sitting on the flat casting out past the weedline rather than the other way around) do so. Actually sometimes that can work pretty well wind or not... A drift sock can be handy too.

- There's nothing wrong with anchoring. Just because you anchor doesn't mean you have to sit on the spot for an hour. Anchor off the bow upwind of a spot like a point or inside turn, go to the back of the boat and fancast the spot, pull anchor and be in your way. Lets you concentrate on fishing, not boat control. I'm looking at a new Terrova to replace my trusty cable drive trolling motor, manly to save wear and tear on my torn up right knee, but the spot lock feature is a definite selling point just because it would allow me to do this sans anchor and rope.

Wind can be your friend too - I think fish are easier to catch on points, etc., when the wind is coming in. It positions them fairly predictably, and I think the way wind cuts down light penetration and stirs things up can be good. You just have to work with it rather than fight it.

[RuddyDuck]

Wind was definately blowing my little boat around yesterday. It does get a bit nagging, but some days it pays off staying in the wind. Yesterday, not so much! Better than mowing the yard I guess. Since I get blowin around alot, I usually stick with crankbaits and other reaction baits and stay away from jigs and t-rigged stuff. I just move around to much it seems to fish those. Do you guys use heavier weights for fishing these in the wind?

Does wind matter so much when say fishing 10ft or less? Sometimes I've had better luck fishing the calm shore and didn't have to deal with the wind. I know for eyes it was always "Fish the windy shore", but not sure if this applies to Bass as much. I'm sure not all the Bass swim over to the windy shore to get the good eats.