The Wind Deflection Flop Cast

Producer: Jensen Fly Fishing

“Early in my guide days I discovered a brutal phenomenon. We’d float a piece of water that flowed south to north. On windy days, usually out of the NW, the wind would hammer the valley and the tall spruce on the east side of the river would deflect the wind, eddying it west, often pushing me across the river. It’s counter-intuitive because as you prepare to dampen a cast with the wind to the east bank, the reality is that your cast isn’t going to arrive unless you up your line speed and adjust your cast. And that’s exactly what happened to me here. The cast that caught the fish wasn’t good at all… but it was the cast I made so I had to play it out. On windy days it pays to pay attention to the nuances of deflections, eddies and vortexes as angles shift… both in the water features we fish and the angles and features in the wind. This wasn’t a good cast – can I say that again? I was able to recover. By paying attention to the dynamics of wind you could avoid making this poor a cast.”