''Wind, rain, sleet, snow, ice.''

[no-one in particular]

I arrange a fishing session on Dungeness beach one boxing day with a mate, it was howling a snow blizzard. When we got back to the car in the dark we were both near hypothermia and then the car wouldn't start. We were a mile from any buildings and I really thought that's it, my stomach sunk like a stone. On the 4th go the engine spluttered into life. Talk about relief. No mobile phones back then to call for help.
We had about 40 cod between us though, was it worth it, yep, just about.
Mad Dogs and Englishmen come to mind; I am a bit more sane these days. Well, on a good day!

 

[sam vimes]

I enjoy the luxury of being able to pick my times. I won't go in absolute extremes of wind, precipitation and cold, I don't generally need to. However, rather than an absolute refusal to go when the weather isn't nice, I simply pick my venues accordingly. If it's baltic, I'll generally fish the rivers for grayling. If it's windy, I'll either pick a stillwater, where the worst of it can be escaped, or fish a stretch of river that flows in the right direction to make the wind as easy to contend with as possible. A wind from between north and west is my least favourite direction for the local rivers as the majority flow somewhere between east and south. Not many places I can fish have the big loops of a lowland rivers that make such consideration a whole lot easier. Various forms of legering would generally make it a whole lot easier to contend with bad weather, but I generally prefer to float fish.