Land The Fly In The Water, Not In Your Ear

Just a few things to keep in mind will help you become a better fly caster. Randy Kadish provides advice to help you enjoy fly fishing more.

fly hooked to ear

So, I was in Grand Central Station, wearing my waders and my fly-fishing vest, holding my fly rod and eating a piece of cheese cake when a man wearing a dark suit and looking every bit like a banker came up to me and asked,
"Where are you going fishing?"
"Croton Falls."
"Really? I thought you had to go all the way up the Catskills. Have a great time."
"Thanks."

His eyes spaced out, as if his thoughts were lost in the river of his mind. He started to turn away, then stopped suddenly. "You know," he said. "I once took up fly fishing. Spent a lot of money on gear, but then I gave it up."
"Why?"
"I got tired of trying to make long casts and hitting myself with the fly. Then, when I planted a fly in my ear, I gave up on fly fishing."
"That"s a shame."
"Still have all my equipment though. Well, like I said, have a great day."

About two hours later I stood in the middle of the Croton Falls Outlet, casting a small streamer; but instead of seeing nature"s beautifully written lyric poem--the stream--I kept seeing the banker-looking man with a fly in his ear.

I was sad.

But not just for him.

You see, since I often experienced the serenity of losing my self, my worries in a stream, a lake or a surf, I was sad for all those who never did and never would.

All those who, in my mind, seemed cheated.

And yet I was almost one of them.

But unable to afford to take up golf and walk those beautiful courses I saw on TV, I stayed with fly fishing.

And struggled.

And grew tired of being hit by my fly.

So finally I traded in my real flies for simulated ones: small pieces of shoelaces; then I spent literally hundreds of hours on a lawn practicing fly casting.

And one by one I slowly discovered the many reasons the fly hit me or my rod.

I"d like to share them with you.

To begin, let"s look at the first basic casting defect: lowering the rod tip from the target line at the end of our casts.

It is a well-known principal of fly casting that the fly will go in the direction the rod tip moved when it was abruptly stopped.

Therefore, during the cast we must not lower the rod tip from the target line..

Sounds easy, doesn"t it?

Well, not really.

There are many causes that inadvertently lower our rod hand and, therefore, the rod tip.

1: Breaking our wrist more than halfway on the forward cast, and therefore lowering our hand when executing the power snap.

2: Lowering our shoulders at the end of the cast. (This is sometimes caused by casting with too low of a trajectory.)

3: Casting out of sync with our body"s rotation, and therefore being unable to lead with our elbow during the forward loading move.

4: Stopping our rod too late in the casting stroke. 5: Beginning the cast with our rod hand too low for our intended trajectory. (This often occurs when we execute a low backcast, then add a drift move.)

6: Breaking our wrist at the end of the back cast.

7: Sliding our elbow back too much during the back cast, and therefore lowering the rod tip. (If we finish our back cast with our elbow past our ear, it will be almost impossible to move our rod hand in a straight line during the forward cast. So, to add a long drift move after the cast, we should keep our elbow in place, our shoulders level, and move our rod hand back to in-line with our shoulder, break our wrist and lower the rod to about two o"clock to the horizon.)

8: Trying to make a long backcast with our back foot pointed too far outward, and then not being able to stop the rod abruptly.

9: Casting with our elbow all the way our from our body.

Now let"s turn to the second basic casting defect: not having enough power on the cast to maintain the proper trajectory. As with the first defect, there are many causes for this.

1: Casting a weighted fly too hard on the forward cast and causing our fly to pull our line down and add slack.

2: Not accelerating faster on the back cast than on the forward cast so that we can make up for not having the added power of a wrist snap.

3: Starting the false cast too early or late and, in effect, shortening our casting stroke. (As a general rule, the more velocity on the cast and the heavier my fly, the earlier I begin my next false cast.)

4: Adding slack because we hauled too long and hard in relation to the acceleration used on our false-cast stroke, and/or because we prematurely moved our rod back at the end of the back cast.

5: Beginning the cast with our line hand below our rod hand, and therefore moving our rod hand first and not initially loading our rod. (If I shoot line after I"ve hauled, I simultaneously move my line hand upward so I can get it up to my rod hand before the line unrolls.)

6: Double hauling or drifting into a stiff wind.

7: Using too a fly too heavy for the weight of our line. (When casting heavy flies I shorten my leaders and lengthen my hauls.)

8: Giving line back too fast after hauling.

9: Drifting the rod too far and/or too fast.

10: False casting and/or shooting too much line.

11: Executing a long cast and prematurely shifting our weight and getting our body ahead of our casting arm. (To help prevent this, we should begin the cast as we watch the line unroll.)

Finally, if you are as I was, you probably avoid getting hit by the fly by casting three-quarters or even sidearm. This will work, but it will only camouflage your casting defects; and you still might hit, and possibly break, your rod tip. However, in the real world of fishing, even the best casters make less than perfect casts so, unless the wind is blowing from your rod-hand side, I recommend casting all heavy flies with your rod pointed slightly outward, and always wearing sunglasses and a broad-brimmed hat.

And try not to get too discouraged. Think of all those golfers spending hours and hours at driving ranges.

Maybe some of life"s rewards are meant to be earned.

But with a little less effort.

Article copyright © 2002 Randall Kadish. Used with permission.