This post will briefly cover the complexities of great casting. In my opinion, casting is the secret to effective dry fly fishing. There is some redundancy here, elements of casting have been discussed throughout my book. Let’s establish a scenario and develop the message of specific casting skills.
Presume you are fishing a four to six feet deep flat pool that extends for 100+ yards. Lots of lies and loaded with trout. There’s a hatch on and fish are responding. You’ve identified a fish that you want to cast to. Now imagine that you can drop a natural on the water to determine the drift to the location that the fish has been rising. Recall our earlier discussion about the window of vision the trout has and, given the depth of the water, the visual window is not more than two feet. We know the trout will see the underside of the surface outside the “window” so an insect falling or hatching will be visible.
Our natural falls or surfaces to hatch a full four to six feet upstream of the visual window. That is five to seven feet above the location of the last rise of the fish you are observing. Its’ lie is most likely upstream from where you last saw it rise: it drifted back (with the current) before committing to taking the last fly. Remember the trout will drift backwards when the target insect enters the visual window before rising to take the meal. (The backward drift of the trout can vary depending on the individual trouts’ inspection of the prey, a distance that’s hard to predict but may sometimes be observed.) Now you need a cast at least seven feet ahead of where you last saw that trout rise, and the drift needs to be drag free. That’s asking alot.
If you are a serious dry fly angler, a drag free drift of more than six feet is a prerequisite, understanding that the variabilities in trout lies, water speed, current changes all lend to the challenge of good presentation, but for this exercise, the angler has few options but a long, drag free drift.
Carl McNeil in his video “Casts that Catch Fish ''outlines” the elements of the “aerial” mend, that is, mending the slack line before it lands on the water, providing for a longer drag free drift. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of this skill. If you have to do a “water mend” after the line is on the water, you WILL move the fly, and put an observant fish down. The smallest movement of the fly line will transfer movement to your fly and alert a trout, particularly a large, mature trout. The aerial mend is challenging, but not impossible and can be practiced. An aerial mend is when the angler completes the cast with a hard stop, and has some additional line in the hand opposite the casting hand. When a cast comes to a complete stop, the line unfolding in the forward cast is now on target; that is, the end of the line and the attached fly is energized toward completion and will proceed to the target. But with some slack line in the non-casting hand (for most of us that’s the left hand) the cast can add slack line without changing the target. A quick flip of the rod tip with the release of the slack line, is the aerial mend. Slack line is added to the cast without changing the target. A slight snap to the right, will add slack line to the right of the cast. If you are casting upstream, that additional slack will NOT lengthen the downstream drift, the snap needs to put line slack upstream of the line about to land on the water.
It’s complicated. The wiggle cast is my answer to surface challenges that are not uniform. The “wiggle cast” is snapping the tip to the right and left in quick succession, adding a number of small bends in the line that straighten out as the drifting line continues after landing on the surface. Most surface flows, if studied closely, show that there are multiple speeds at the surface. If it is obvious that the flow between the angler and the desired drift is one smoothe speed, then you must choose an upstream flip to add slack that is upstream of the drift you desire.
Think of the aerial mend as having two options: multiple small added loops to extend your drift, or one larger upstream loop to extend the drag free drift across an obvious current between the angler and the desired/target current drift. As you can imagine, the wiggle aerial mend is effective in both situations, but will not provide as much drag free drift. Once you become efficient at upstream aerial mends, you can learn downstream aerial mends: not as useful but can address some tricky drifts, for instance behind a boulder that creates a back current.n
The Flip: Obviously the challenge, and where you will need to practice, is the sequence of a hard stop of the forward cast to send the line to the target, followed by a left/right or wiggle “flip” to add the additional slack line held in the non-casting hand. This is not an easy move! It requires lots of practice. Your goal is to not change the direction of the hard-stop target setting with enough time to release extra line into the cast creating additional slack to add length to your drag-free drift. Again, videos by Carl McNeil are helpful, and an experienced instructor is most helpful, if they have mastered the aerial mend themselves.
Snap-Cast: Let’s leave the aerial mend for a moment and talk about Lefty Kreh. Lefty is a legend, and his book “Presenting the Fly” is filled with tips that I keep discovering after multiple readings. I’m going to focus on one to support the approach we’ve been discussing. Lefty uses terms that are, unfortunately not common in the fly casting world. One of my favorites from Lefty is the forward cast proclamation “start slow, finish fast”. It’s said a variety of ways in his writings, but it's a very important concept. In using the leverage of the rod, you want to wait until the line loop in the back cast has just straightened out, then begin the forward cast: “slowly”! Accelerate as the forward cast begins, and have maximum speed of the rod tip just as it nears the moment of full stop. The stop is critical, since it determines the path of the line towards the target. Lefty also talks about a quick “snap” as you stop the progress of the cast, but you have to fully stop! No sloppy slow down. I still work on the “snap” at the end of both the backcast AND forward cast, and find them difficult but knowing how to execute the “snap” will address distance, and all but eliminate tailing loops.
Now, only now can you add the small flips creating the aerial mend. Sounds like you’ll need to practice! I still do!
This post will briefly cover the complexities of great casting. In my opinion, casting is the secret to effective dry fly fishing. There is some redundancy here, elements of casting have been discussed throughout my book. Let’s establish a scenario and develop the message of specific casting skills.
Presume you are fishing a four to six feet deep flat pool that extends for 100+ yards. Lots of lies and loaded with trout. There’s a hatch on and fish are responding. You’ve identified a fish that you want to cast to. Now imagine that you can drop a natural on the water to determine the drift to the location that the fish has been rising. Recall our earlier discussion about the window of vision the trout has and, given the depth of the water, the visual window is not more than two feet. We know the trout will see the underside of the surface outside the “window” so an insect falling or hatching will be visible.
Our natural falls or surfaces to hatch a full four to six feet upstream of the visual window. That is five to seven feet above the location of the last rise of the fish you are observing. Its’ lie is most likely upstream from where you last saw it rise: it drifted back (with the current) before committing to taking the last fly. Remember the trout will drift backwards when the target insect enters the visual window before rising to take the meal. (The backward drift of the trout can vary depending on the individual trouts’ inspection of the prey, a distance that’s hard to predict but may sometimes be observed.) Now you need a cast at least seven feet ahead of where you last saw that trout rise, and the drift needs to be drag free. That’s asking alot.
If you are a serious dry fly angler, a drag free drift of more than six feet is a prerequisite, understanding that the variabilities in trout lies, water speed, current changes all lend to the challenge of good presentation, but for this exercise, the angler has few options but a long, drag free drift.
Carl McNeil in his video “Casts that Catch Fish ''outlines” the elements of the “aerial” mend, that is, mending the slack line before it lands on the water, providing for a longer drag free drift. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of this skill. If you have to do a “water mend” after the line is on the water, you WILL move the fly, and put an observant fish down. The smallest movement of the fly line will transfer movement to your fly and alert a trout, particularly a large, mature trout. The aerial mend is challenging, but not impossible and can be practiced. An aerial mend is when the angler completes the cast with a hard stop, and has some additional line in the hand opposite the casting hand. When a cast comes to a complete stop, the line unfolding in the forward cast is now on target; that is, the end of the line and the attached fly is energized toward completion and will proceed to the target. But with some slack line in the non-casting hand (for most of us that’s the left hand) the cast can add slack line without changing the target. A quick flip of the rod tip with the release of the slack line, is the aerial mend. Slack line is added to the cast without changing the target. A slight snap to the right, will add slack line to the right of the cast. If you are casting upstream, that additional slack will NOT lengthen the downstream drift, the snap needs to put line slack upstream of the line about to land on the water.
It’s complicated. The wiggle cast is my answer to surface challenges that are not uniform. The “wiggle cast” is snapping the tip to the right and left in quick succession, adding a number of small bends in the line that straighten out as the drifting line continues after landing on the surface. Most surface flows, if studied closely, show that there are multiple speeds at the surface. If it is obvious that the flow between the angler and the desired drift is one smoothe speed, then you must choose an upstream flip to add slack that is upstream of the drift you desire.
Think of the aerial mend as having two options: multiple small added loops to extend your drift, or one larger upstream loop to extend the drag free drift across an obvious current between the angler and the desired/target current drift. As you can imagine, the wiggle aerial mend is effective in both situations, but will not provide as much drag free drift. Once you become efficient at upstream aerial mends, you can learn downstream aerial mends: not as useful but comes in handy in certain situations, like back eddies.