In my mind it’s a side wind that kills “feel” the most (slightly nerdy Monday morning?)

On Friday I talked about how I’d been fishing a deeper than usual bass mark than I’d usually be targeting, and because I have fished it a fair bit in all manner of winds and conditions it’s been an interesting experiment as such into how much I can feel going on when I’m bumping my lure along in current + deeper water. I’m talking from flat calm through to incessant W and NW winds in my face - here in the south west it’s often a NW wind which blows straight down a lot of our estuaries, whatever the lie of the land in Google Maps suggests - and almost everything in between. I have had bass fishing this spot in a few different ways, but the best results have predominantly come from bumping Savage Minnows Weedless and Sandeel V2 Weedless lures along the bottom - matching weight of jig head and the way each lure moves in different strengths of current etc.

As I am sure you find if you are working lures along the bottom for any of your fishing, in flat calm conditions I would argue that you can almost feel a crab breaking wind as your lure bumps on by, if indeed crabs do actually fart. As per this recent blog post here, I am not really sure I buy into far more expensive rods transmitting a huge amount more meaningful information to us when we are actually fishing like this - do we want to think we are feeling more because the rod costs more? - so give me a fast action lure rod without a floppy tip and I fancy that in no wind and flat calm conditions I can pretty easily feel the difference between my lure bumping on mud, sand and rock etc. Even when I can’t prove that I’m right about what I am fishing over, I fancy my chances of being pretty close as the jig heads lands with a “soft” feeling on mud, a slightly “grainy” feel when it lands on sand or gravel, and a hard “tap” when it lands on rock (that “solid” feel means my lure is snagged!). What I really like is a “tap, tap, bang” feeling of a bass smashing my lure I might add.

A wind in my face obviously cuts down casting distance and so on, but by concentrating on the angle of my rod and the belly in my braid which is now there because the wind is blowing it down, I reckon I can still feel what is going on fairly well. Same with a wind from directly behind me albeit I reckon I can feel a touch more with a wind in my face. I would argue that how much I can feel also has to depend on the weight of the lure and the jig head especially, plus of course the depth and strength of current and so on. I have never bought into bigger lures equalling bigger bass, not with the bass I have seen and caught, and when fishing these runs of current I am concentrating more on chopping and changing sizes and weights of lure to match the speed of the current and how the lure is moving along the bottom. I could use a seriously heavy jig head and have the lure hardly move in some situations, or I could try and work with the current and the lure to get it moving as naturally as possible along the bottom. I know which approach I will choose and it’s why these days when bass fishing like this I tend to carry a mixture of Savage Minnow Weedless 10cm/16g and 12.5cm/28g and also the Sandeel V2 Weedless 11.5cm/22g and 13cm/31g. You know I am working with Savage Gear and I had a lot to do with the birth of these lures so I am very inclined to carry them, but it takes nothing away from how lethal lures like the Black Minnow are in conditions like these, indeed they are currently a lot more versatile because there are so many jig head and lure body options available.

So my maximum “feel” is coming when there is no wind of course, but I reckon I am getting plenty of feedback with a wind that is in my face or coming from behind me. Now we move onto side winds, and it’s been so noticeable recently how a fairly fresh wind which comes from my left or right kills so much of me being able to feel what my lure is doing. We need to take into account the direction of the current and the wind here, but without getting too technical I would instead suggest that when a side wind creates that great big side-belly in the mainline, that’s when I am getting the least amount of feedback about my lure bumping along the bottom. So what do I do?

I am almost turning to a sort of muscle-memory of how I know my lure is fishing when there is no wind. When I can’t feel that “tap” which is the lure hitting the bottom, I think back to when I could feel it and I almost give it a little bit more time to get down when I’ve got a side wind. I try to visualise what the lure is doing in the current even if I can’t feel it tapping the bottom as it either trundles along or I fish it with a deliberate sink and draw. If you think about it, what you need to feel the most is a fish hitting it, and with how hard bass so often hit our lures there isn’t generally a huge problem with that side of things - unless they are being finicky as they were the other day. Trying to fish a casting jig with a controlled sink and draw action in a raging bit of surf with a strong side wind I think is bloody hard to do properly, but bumping a soft plastic on a jig head along the bottom in a run of current in a side wind is much easier. For sure you can’t feel as much, but how about upping the weight of your jig head and working the lure a bit harder to try and get more of a sense of what is going on? For me that might be moving from the 12.5cm/28g Savage Minnow Weedless to the 13cm/31g Sandeel V2 Weedless, and then working the Sandeel V2 a bit more along the bottom because the narrower profile body and jig head resists the current a bit less which in turn can be really helpful sometimes. Food for thought or is this too much for a Monday morning? Guess what I woke up at 5am this morning thinking about!

Addition - my favourite fishing podcast by miles is the Night Shift podcast from Surfcasters’ Journal over in the US, and a couple of months ago I was rather honoured to be asked to record an episode with the editor Zeno Hromin. Well this morning the podcast we did together arrived in my feed so I have linked to it above. I don’t particularly like watching or listening to myself, but I had almost forgotten how much fun we had talking for an hour or so about all things fishing with an emphasis on our bass and their striped bass of course. Have a listen and I hope you enjoy it, thank you Zeno for asking me to do this.

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