Articles in the Category Fly Casting

For better casting, for more options after the power stroke, for more available adjustments regarding where the line will end up, shoot most or all of the necessary line on the backcast. And if you’re really good, do it with no extra false casting . . .

Here’s how and why . . .

In my early twenties I drove a delivery van for a printing company while finishing the last few semesters of my English degree. Life was pretty easy back then, and I spent much of my leisure time playing guitar and fishing small backcountry streams for wild trout. It was a tight-quarters casting game. And making the transition from the five-foot spinning rod of my youth to a much longer fly rod gave me some trouble. Until, that is, I received one of the simplest and most transformative pieces of fly fishing advice . . .

Whenever we learn a new skill, our tendency is to exaggerate the motions. Beginning guitar players, for example, arch their last finger joints too much, desperately straining to keep their fretting fingers away from the neighboring strings. Eventually, experience teaches a more relaxed approach, and music begins to flow from the instrument.

Curiously, there’s a connection between fly rodders and guitarists. Somehow, there’s a similar draw. I know a lot of artists who can both sling a fly line and strum a six string. And fly anglers have the same trouble as guitarists — we try too hard at first. In fact, even experienced fly casters start reaching with the casting arm when presented with a new technique.

So don’t do it. Don’t reach on the forward cast. When the backcast ends crisply, the forward cast begins. And when the forward cast ends, the arm should be in a natural position — not stretched out and reaching for the target. Here’s why . . .

Casting styles change with the water. The same stroke that lays a dry line with perfect s-curves in a soft flat is useless in pocket water. As the river picks up speed, so must our casting. Effective drifts are shorter, so we cast more. Mixed surface currents greedily pull our built-in slack over to the next seam. So our casting matches the currents. It’s more aggressive. Faster.

But fishing rough or mixed currents doesn’t mean we give up on a good dead drift. And the best stroke for the job is one that I call the Crash Cast . . .