Excessive wind has been messing with my fly fishing.

3 weeks ago I was at a pond with stocked trout. I wasn't having much luck with woolly buggers or nymphs, but there were some kind of round bugs on the surface and although I hadn't ever thrown a dry fly that imitated an insect other than a grasshopper I had some flies that I got when I signed up for Trout Unlimited so I picked out something about the same size as the bugs and proceeded to catch 5 trout in about 5 minutes. This attracted a lot of attention and pretty soon I was surrounded by bait fishermen, And guys with heavy lures all around me. It made it hard to cast at any rising trout without crossing lines. Nobody else was really catching anything anymore so I left. It was a blast on dries though while it lasted.

I returned to the pond several times but no more rising trout and no luck. It didn't help any that the wind seemed to be blowing 15+ every time I was off. I took my 8 weight out a few other times to another pond and managed a few small bass.

They stocked the Trinity Friday and I took the day off, but once again the wind was 15+ with gusts to 30. I fished for about 3 hours without so much as a bump. I saw 1 trout cruising around frantically and 1 that actually jumped out of the water. With the wind at my back I managed some pretty long casts, but hit the back of my head a few times.

I guess I will give the trout 1 more try come Fly Fest on the 11th.

Hopefully the wind dies down sometime soon and with all the warm weather the bass fishing should be picking up.

Be glad you don't live in West Texas. The wind out there is stupid.

Ah, come on, Ben, the sky was a lovely shade of brown over Odessa this morning. What wind???

Where did that picture come from? It has to be from one of those fake news sites. There's no way that was actually taken in Lubbock, the sky is the wrong color...


I had just moved into the dorm and several of us were watching a large cloud of sand rolling toward us from a 5th floor window. Having grown up in Odessa, I was just noting how much redder the dirt was in Lubbock and thinking that the 5th floor provided a pretty cool angle to watch it come in. (It really is fascinating to watch if you've never seen one come in, but once it arrives, it is not not so cool.)

However, there was a guy from Houston standing there with us and he started panicking for real. He'd never heard of a sand storm before and he thought the apocalypse had arrived and the world was about to end.

Looking back, he might have been happier at another college...

I lived in Amarillo for the past 4 years until last November. We didn't have as many dusters as Lubbock gets but my wife and I don't miss how everything turns brown from all the dust in the air.

pic and this funny wind has been a real beating on the water recently. Welcome to early spring in Texas!!!