Challenges with a shooting head and weather conditions

Last night I finally got to go fly fishing salmon from the river Utsjoki for the first time this summer. It really didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped. I had some problems with casting for two reasons, the shooting head that was too long and the wind was absolutely crazy.
I thought that when you buy a a rod, reel and lines with shooting head, the head would be ready for use out of the box. So I just set everything tying the lines together with loops and went fishing. Obviously I was wrong and that became self evident in a few minutes. I realized that my brand new 10 feet AFTM 8 Guideline LPXe rod can't handle 12 meters long shooting head. Immediately I sat down on the beach and went surfing the internet with my Nokia N76 for information on the shooting head lengths and realized I have to cut it 2,5-3 meters shorter. Well, I didn't want to do it then as I didn't have those easily attachable loops for the line end and the problem trying to make those loops yourself was still fresh in my memory.
So I continued fishing although you couldn't talk about casting a fly...it was more like throwing. And I had been told using a shooting head would make fly fishing easier! The wildly blowing wind didn't make it any easier. The wind blew the line to my face a couple of times while I was trying to cast it. I was very lucky not to get the fly to my face!
Did I catch anything besides my jacket? ...No :( As any fisherman I have good excuses. Besides the challenges with casting, the water is now really high. I have never fished on that part of Utsjoki with water being that high. I didn't really know where to look for the fish. And I only had floating line (shooting head). I think I have to get the fly well below the surface in order to catch a salmon in these water conditions. This means I got to get me a intermediate or sinking 2 shooting head...and of course those easy to use loops for it. So I have to go shopping now. In the mean while read the blog by Aslak Pieski, mostly about river Teno and fishing there, from here: http://www.tenojoki.fi/tenopaasivut/aslak/