Fly casting, by itself, is a difficult proposition. Add wind, and it gets even tougher. How much harder fly casting becomes in windy conditions depends on the skill of the caster. For great casters, the wind makes fly casting marginally harder. During Trout Accuracy at the Northwestern Tournament this year, Steve Rajeff handled the wind like a boss. In fact, he made it look as if the air was still. I wished that I could cast like him.
For beginners, however, wind makes fly casting almost impossible. There was a time when I didn’t practice if it was too windy. I remember one day when I arrived at the Oakland ponds, discovering that it was windy, I left without casting. Luis Montes, who normally doesn’t shout “bye” across the ponds, cupped his hands around his mouth and asked, “Leaving already?” Back then, the targets were too hard to hit in the wind.
Although I still struggle in the wind, nowadays, I seek the wind. It’s the only way to get better. Wind is like a pre-H-series FF86: it magnifies your casting faults. For this reason, I go to San Francisco more often, hoping that the winds pick up in the late afternoon. When Alice, Elaine and I prepared for the World Championships in 2024, we went to the San Leandro Marina and Half Moon Bay to practice with makeshift targets tethered to lines that we threw out into the water.
When we practice in the wind, it’s important that you and I practice the right things. Otherwise, we don’t – can’t – improve, and we ingrain our faults. Let’s go over some of the appropriate things that I think are important to practice.
Casting Into The Wind
Most people understand that the loop is like a knife, slicing through the air: the tighter the loop, the sharper the knife. Consequently, a tight loop is one of two priorities when a cast (front or back) is made into the wind.
But, knowing that you need a tighter loop in an opposing wind and forming a tighter loop into the wind are two different things.
If the wind picked up while Chris stood beside me watching me cast, he would softly remind me, “Make your loop tighter.” If the loop wasn’t tighter, he would gently repeat, “Tighter.”
“Tighter.”
“Tighter.”
Why is it so hard to form a tight loop in an opposing wind?
When we make a cast into the wind, our fly rod (and the line in our guides) must slice through the air, too. As the rod pushes through the wind, the rod bends more compared to a rod moving through still air – even if we don’t apply more force.
However, when we feel the rod encountering more resistance in the wind, our instinct is to cast with more power. Not only does extra force bend the rod even more, it also magnifies our faults. Deviations from a straight-line path (vertically and horizontally) become exaggerated due to larger acceleration vectors. Extra force also causes the counter-flex to be bigger. Dampening the rod tip becomes more difficult. And then, the wind amplifies the imperfections created in our loop because our thick fly lines are so air resistant.
Another reason that may make the rod bend more during a cast into the wind is that the line from the preceding cast (that is in the direction of the wind) may straighten with more velocity and inertia… loading the rod more than a cast in still air.
The earlier and increased bending of the rod are significant because, for most casters, they create wider loops. Even without the wind, when we cast the same length of line with more force, our loops generally become larger. Big loops are characterized by large casting arcs and acceleration that starts too early.
As counterintuitive as it may be, the casting stroke into the wind needs to be slightly less forceful than in still air to account for the additional bending of the rod created by the wind. It’s the most reliable way to keep loops tight, cast after cast.
To ensure that the fly makes it to its target, the caster must then rely on a short (well-timed) haul (during the power snap). A proper haul increases line speed and it can make the loop tighter.
Once we understand how to form a tight loop into the wind, the second priority is trajectory. Since the rod starts bending sooner when we cast into the wind, a good caster will stop the rod sooner to maintain a tight loop. This means that, when we make a cast into the wind, there is a tendency for our trajectories to be elevated.
When we cast into the wind, the best trajectory for a false cast is one that keeps our loop level. The best trajectory for a laydown is more tricky. If the trajectory is too high, the fly will be blown back towards us. Conversely, if our trajectory is too low, the wind will push the loop downwards driving the fly into the water before it reaches the target or fish.
When we make a laydown into the wind, there is a tiny range of optimal trajectories that will allow the fly to unroll to the intended spot. That range depends on the fly line’s air resistance, the line’s mass, the speed of the wind, the size of the loop, the line’s speed, etc. In general, the best trajectories for the laydown into the wind are *slightly* higher than, or the same as, the optimal trajectory in still air.
Casting With The Wind
When Chris and I practiced Bass Bug on a windy day earlier this year, his instruction was, “Don’t let the wind hurt you twice.”
He was talking about my cast with the wind. My false casts with the wind had too much velocity, causing the line to turn over like a tuck cast and creating slack. Another problem was that my casting tempo was off. The line was straightening out faster… meaning that the next cast needed to be initiated earlier.
When we cast with the wind, the rod bends less because there’s less air resistance. When we don’t feel the rod bend, instinct tells us to apply more power so that we feel it bend. We must resist this temptation. Like casting against the wind, we must cast with slightly less power.
The trajectory of the false cast with the wind should be level. If you elevate the trajectory of the cast with the wind, to maintain the casting plane, the cast into the wind would have to be downwards. Naturally, if you are trying to make a hero cast, the last cast with the wind should be elevated.
Casting With A Side Wind
On-shoulder winds are dangerous. The wind pushes the fly towards you so it is important to lean your rod out (away from you). There’s also a higher risk of the fly hitting your rod since casters tend to direct the back cast away from themselves and the wind exaggerates the horizontal vector towards the caster on the cast coming forward.
Since off-shoulder winds push the fly away from you, the rod can be more vertical.
Epilogue
There is one topic, in addition to loop size and trajectory, that I didn’t discuss much. Whether wind is present or not, we should always be working on eliminating slack.
Essentially, wind – directly and indirectly – increases slack normally present in our casts. Because Steve has little to no slack in his casts, the wind doesn’t affect him much. But a beginner, who has a ton of slack, is affected more… much, much more.
Consequently, if we form tight loops with appropriate trajectories that have no slack, the wind will affect us less. I know. It’s easier said than done. If it were easy, we’d all be casting like Steve Rajeff.
People may be surprised by what I have written. But, fly casting is not intuitive. If it were, everyone would be really good at it. Over the years, as I have worked on my fly casting, I am constantly reminded of Ben Hogan’s sentiment regarding golf: “Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing.”
I think that this observation applies to fly casting, too. It’s particularly apt when we cast in windy conditions.
Whenever I am reminded of Ben Hogan’s words, I also think of the Seinfeld episode (S5, Ep 22), The Opposite. If you aren’t familiar with it, Seinfeld makes a revelation for George: “If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would be right.”
When George starts doing the opposite of what he normally would, his life turns around: he gets a beautiful girlfriend; he gets his dream job; and he is finally able to move out of his parents’ house.
I am not saying that instincts are wrong. But for fly casting – an activity that few people truly master – our instincts may not be right.
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