This is the most basic of casts. Get a rod a floating line and a leader with a yarn fly, strip 30-35’ of line beyond the tip and mark the line near the reel with a piece of black electrical tape (now called the mark) – for these lessons that’s all the line you’ll need, if you are holding your mark in your line hand you’ll know you have the right amount of line to work with.
The four part cast consists of four distinct phases though they flow together into one fluid cast. In many ways this could be considered the only fly fishing cast, given that all casts have these basic components although they are very different in how they are performed. For now we’ll just keep things simple. I like to think of them and practice them separately – I like to do that with nearly everything, as stated in the introduction I doubt that these articles alone will teach you to cast, but hopefully they will give you another way of looking at casting.
Part I the Lift
Probably the single most over looked aspect of fly casting is the simple act of lifting the line from the water, most often it is just considered part of the backcast – if it is considered at all. May seem stupid to devote time to this, kind of like writing a book about how to kick field goals with a chapter on how to tie your shoes.
The goal of this phase – To delicately lift the line from the water and get it into position for a backcast
Reason for this phase – Carefully lifting the line from the water prevents spooking fish. It also enables one to make a backcast with a progressive load. If the line is ripped from the water the rod will load from this action (this can be exploited in advanced casts like the water haul) once the line leaves the water so does this loading force and the cast can become unbalanced (not unlike throwing a baseball and suddenly it becomes a tennis ball in your hand). But lifting the line first the angler applies the load and the angler is in complete control of the cast. This is extremely important for beginners, you don’t want to learn to cast by simply making movements but rather to feel how action A creates result B – in the long run this will enable you to tweak casts for less than ideal situations.
How it is done – The key to this phase is to use the length of the rod, and the properties of arcs. Mathematically this means that your rod is essentially a 9’ radius so even a few degrees of movement can affect several feet of line. Functionally this means that if you should always keep the tip of the rod extremely low – its not a bad habit to touch the water with the tip of the rod before you cast. A very common mistake I see is for a person to keep his rod tip high while drifting or stripping and then lower it – that can be as much as 90 degrees of change – with a 9’ rod that can mean as much as 14 feet of slack almost one ½ of the average load producing section of a WF line. If you try to make a backcast from that position only 15’ of line has any opportunity to load the rod, on top of that the first 90 degrees of your casting arc are essentially wasted. The key point is to begin a cast your rod tip should be touching the surface of the water and the line should have little to no slack. Ideally you should have 30-35’ of line beyond the tip. To perform the lift, extend your arm (you rod just grew two feet or more depending on your arm length). Now slowly but continuously raise the rod tip, while bending your elbow to a comfortable position to start your backcast. (It may help to imagine the rod and line as part of one long stick that you are just picking up by one end.) When you are ready to start your back cast you should be in a comfortable position (generally elbow bent rod tip high on a clock face this would be about 10 o’clock the actual clock face metaphor isn’t my favorite and this will change depending on the cast you are making and other situations) and most importantly roughly 2/3 to ¾’s of the line is off the water and there is no slack between the rod tip and the fly.
Key Point: The lift sets up the back cast – if the above seemed overly simplistic that’s good it should. The simple reality is that if you don’t perform a good lift the rest of your cast will be extremely difficult.
Fun things to try: Perform the lift as slowly as possible, pretend you are the bionic man moving in slow motion. You should find that no matter how slow you perform the lift it will be effective so long as it is continuous – pause once and it falls apart keep moving and things are good.
Part II The Backcast
The Back cast beings immediately after the lift there should be no pause in between them. I separate them here and in my mind because there is considerable difference in not only what you are doing but also what you are trying to do. The backcast is often thought of as being more important than the forward cast. This isn’t really true. Like all phases of a cast each builds upon the next.
The goal of this phase – To generate efficient casting energy, which can be used by a forward cast
Reason for this phase – In order to generate energy and load the rod (which we’ll discuss later) a fly rod needs something to pull against, the fly line and any kinetic energy the fly line may be holding.
How it is done - The caster merely accelerates the rod backwards and comes to a full and complete immediate stop. Ideally the stop will come instantly after the rod line system reaches its fastest velocity. You aim the cast with the rod tip at the stop. So if the rod tip stops at an upwards angle the cast will travel upwards, if the tip stops at a downwards angle the cast will travel downwards. A perfect cast would head directly backwards – since few things in life are perfect it’s generally best to aim the cast slightly upwards. The key to this is acceleration. A common mistake is for a caster to try too hard and more the rod as quickly as possible. A better cast starts slow and constantly adds speed.
The second part of the cast is the stop. This is the part, which is crucial for aiming, and for transferring the energy of the cast. The best example of how this works is to picture a guy on a dirt bike crashing into a low wall of tires. The bike stops instantly and the rider flies over the handlebars with humorous and perhaps tragic results. The faster the bike and the more abrupt the stop the further he flies. Harder to illustrate is the theory that if he was braking when he hit the wall or accelerating even if he finally hit at the same speed the accelerating driver would fly further (you may just want to take the word of my physics professor on that one.) As a fly fisherman its generally best to stop the rod while accelerating – there are situations where you may not want to do this but we’ll discuss them later.
Now if you have read a lot about casting you may be wondering why I don’t say something along the lines of deliberately having a brief period of speeding up and stopping to form a loop of a certain size. The reason is considering human physical limitations I have never seen it necessary for someone to actively attempt that, it just happens naturally (your arm doesn’t have air brakes stopping with 100% efficiency is as far as I know impossible for a human, Legolas does it all the time that bastard.) Unless you want to cast a large loop (useful with heavy lines and heavy flies) there is no need to go out of your way to form the loop or to worry that your loops will be too tight.
Key points: Acceleration a constant acceleration to 75% of your total arm speed is far better than a constant cast at 100% of your arm speed. The better you stop the better you’ll cast. The rod tip aims the cast.
Fun things to try: Try making a loop so tight that it crashes into the rod. If you are near a field with a baseball backstop (or soccer net), practice aiming your backcast at various spots on the stop, use it for a reference to see how high you can send your back cast or how low (when I was a kid my father would tie a ribbon to the chain link and I’d have to cast through the links close to the ribbon without looking – Sounds impossible? Give it a shot you’ll soon see just how exact a fly rod can be not random or clumsy like a bait caster once you do it you will be able to do it 100 times in a row more or less). Finally accelerate as slowly as possible – the key is not to move fast just faster and end with an abrupt stop – it may surprise you just how little energy and effort is needed to cast that 30’ of line. I’m a big strong young man, yet I have little doubt that Lefty Kreh and Joan Wulff could embarrass me in a casting competition. Casting is not about physical prowess, if you ever find you are struggling or getting tired – stop, and rethink what you are doing.
Part III The Forward cast
This is the cast that we have been building up to, yet will likely be the shortest explanation, since it is nearly identical to the backcast.
Goal of this phase – To take the energy from the backcast and direct it out towards the target
Reason for this Phase – Even though it is physically similar to the backcast there are some key differences most notably when to start
How its done – Exactly like the backcast accelerate the rod then stop. The rod tip still aims the cast. Do not aim at a target but rather above it.
Key Point: When do you start a backcast? Like most questions this is best left to science.
Experiment: If you were to have someone stand 40’ behind you (possibly on a step ladder) and hold your fly thus keeping your fly line straight and placing a little tension on the rod would you be able to make a forward cast as well as if you had just made an efficient backcast? If the person pulls harder how does the cast respond?
Probably seems like a pretty stupid question. Yet many casters use their backcast for little more than to position the fly line in the air behind them so that they can make a forward cast. If you were to try what the question illustrates you would find that you could in fact make a cast like that, but it is inefficient and weaker than a forward cast that begins slightly before the back cast straightens out (represented by the assistant pulling on the line more adding load.)
So the question of when to start the backcast is not a simple one. If you start after the back cast straightens out then you have only the mass of the line (now falling towards Earth) to pull against (if you make consistently good backcasts but lousy forward casts this may be the reason keep in mind that the backcast you also have some water tension to pull against not just the mass of the line.) If you start the cast too early you are essentially casting with a lot of slack, which is very inefficient. The very best time is to start the forward cast when the backcast is nearly straight yet still moving backwards. As is the case with many things timing this perfectly is very difficult so to start its generally better to start the cast before the last few feet of the fly line as un rolled. In an illustration the line behind you would look like a long shanked hook – or to keep with the season a candy cane. This timing offers you the chance to pull against line that is pulling against you – and is more efficient than pulling against gravity. It’s like having the second assistant, and who couldn’t use more minions?
That’s about all I have to say for the forward cast – otherwise it’s just like the backcast.
Part IV The Presentation
Once you make your forward cast you aren’t done you still have to present the fly to the fish.
Goal of this phase – To present the fly to the fish in a natural way, to release the energy of the forward cast
Reason for this phase – This is the most prominent portion of many specialized casts such as the reach or pile cast, or when shooting line you learn to maintain two point control
How it’s done – This really depends on what you are trying to achieve, and most of these skills will be discussed in other articles. Basically once the fly is cast you can still use the line and rod to effect how it lands, its also important to maintain control of the line and fly even when you get into shooting line.
Summary
Hopefully that was a nice brief over view of a basic cast that gave you another way of looking at it. Casting should not be a hurdle to your enjoyment of fly-fishing but a big part of the reason for it. I avoided getting into specifics of what the individual should be doing i.e. not using the wrist, stances, grips – because these are fairly personal and discussed in other places. Most people will develop their own way. What’s more important is what is to be done and why.
Thanks to my friend Sean Juan for this...
