Fishing in the wind can be both extremely difficult and extremely rewarding. You just have to understand the nature of bass and what the wind is doing underneath the water.

Light Wind – A light steady wind is my favorite. Why? It’s my favorite because it ripples the top of the water allowing inactive bass to become active. Bass in general don’t have many predators after they reach a certain size. One of the few predators they have, even when they get a bit bigger comes from above. When the water becomes rippled, they don’t have to worry as much about a predator from above being able to spot them. This also allows me to target active bass using two of my favorite lures.... top water & spinnerbaits. I love fishing competitively using these lures, especially under light wind conditions. I’ll immediately zone in on what I think are key areas and will generally start probing the shallow wind/wave blown shoreline. A little trick I like to use on sunny days that helps me out almost every time is to position my boat so I’m casting both into the light wind and into the sun. I’ll target vegetation, both on top of the water and slightly beneath the water. Give it a shot! You will be surprised. 

Moderate to Heavy Wind – Here is where I’ll immediately upsize the same pattern. I will continue to use a spinnerbait and topwater, however I’ll upgrade to a little bigger size. My target area will change to a point or bluff on the lake and I position my boat where I think the bait fish will be running inform to feed on the smaller aquatic plankton and animals being turned up from the wave action and wind. This usually entails casting into the wind either directly or a 45-degree angle to both sides of the wind centerline. This pattern especially holds true if the wind has been steady throughout the day or even longer. The continuous wave action against the windblown side of the lake causes an upwelling from the bottom exposing a feeding frenzy from the bottom of the food chain up to the lunker bass.

Heavy Wind – Is just plain tough! There are no ands ifs or buts about it. It is tough on the angler, the equipment, and the co-angler. The only time I’ll stay in heavy wind is when I’m catching fish; usually I’m using a big spinnerbait. When I do make the decision to move out of the heavy wind in a tournament, I’ll generally focus on main lake points and trying to find that one spot where the wind isn’t so sever and yet I can make a good presentation of a bait (shad, crayfish, lake specific forage) swimming or moving in the direction of the wave action current (or upwelling).

When all else fails – My last resort if things just aren’t working out in the wind is to go with the old jig and just get down on the bottom. Hopefully I will have had the opportunity to have pre-fished and have had located some structure both in and out of the wind. Both a jig and a Carolina rig are great fallback baits to use in tough windy conditions, especially over that submerged hump, log, or structure I marked the day before the tournament!

Written By: JD
Lunker USA
January 2006
http://www.lunkerusa.com

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