I taught fly casting in South Africa for many years. For some of them, I was part of a team that were involved in a fly fishing school at one of Africa’s greatest trout fishing resorts: ‘Trout Hideaway.’ Casting a fly line is totally different from casting a concentrated weight such as a lead, lure spinner or even float tackle. What you are doing is casting out a length of quite heavy line. The fly is attached to a leader of monofilament tied to the front of the line of course.
The first thing I used to do was to get it into the mind of pupil that he or she was NOT casting the fly, but casting the line. The fly goes along for the ride. The next thing was the grip. For most, you take hold of the handle much like you would a tennis racket, in other words, ‘shake hands’ with the grip. Then you move your thumb along to the top of the handle. Hold the grip in a firm YET RELAXED manner. The way some guys veins in their arms used to stand out when they gripped a fly rod looked like they were holding on to it like grim death. Then the stance. I’m going to assume you are right handed for this. Some stupid casting instructors tell you to put your right foot out before your left foot. Cobblers I say! Assume what I call an open stance with you left foot forward, similar to how you would stand at tennis to serve. By standing this way it is easy to look backwards to watch your back cast. The next step is to get you roll casting; and here I disagree fully with those who say you must start casting over a field. Start your casting over a bit of stillwater. You can’t learn to roll cast over a field. All my casting tuition by the way was done with a 9 foot 6 weight outfit and a floating weight forward line. Roll casting is combatively easy for a beginner to do and it gets you into the feel of the line on the water. What you do is get about 12 yards of line out onto the water. Then you point the tip of the rod straight down the line, hold the line in your left hand KEEPING IT BY YOUR SIDE and lift the rod slowly. When the line you have lifted gets level with your shoulder, bring the rod forward and downwards with a fast flick. The line will roll out onto the water in a straight line. I used to spend at least two hours coaching the pupils at this roll casting until they got it right. The next step was casting properly and the essence of this, is the back cast. Anyone can cast forward, but it is the back cast which needs a great deal of attention, mainly because it’s not a natural action to many. It is the back cast which will develop certain muscles in your wrist and forearm that you don’t use all that often. To execute the back cast I used to get the pupil to slide the line slowly off the water by lifting the rod and at the same time quickening the lift into a backward flick where the line will extend behind you. It is important to turn your head and watch that line. When the line extends behind you, bring the rod forward and flick out the line forward, dropping the line gently in the position it started.
This normally took some time and some people were always a lot better at it than others. It’s all about timing and not strength. When the pupil was proficient at the simple roll cast, sliding off the water and flicking backwards, watching the back cast and then flicking forward, I used to teach false casting and thus extending the line into the air for longer throws. After this, came more advanced casting techniques such as the single and double haul, how to cast a wavy line, how to execute an upstream mend and how to cast around corners. Very useful on rivers. If there is one tip I can give any budding fly fisher is to keep your casting IN PLANE. If you go out of plane by twisting your wrist sideways on the back cast, you will lose distance and get tired very quickly. Remember again, the backcast is the most important of all. Get that right and the forward cast will come easily. What I have written however can never equal practical lessons from a good teacher. |
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