Kyle Shea
Casting further
Deneki Outdoors
Casting a long ways is not anywhere close to the most important skill in fly fishing. We’d actually tell you that casting too far is one of the leading causes of not catching fish…but that’s a topic for another day!
Bombing long casts is fun, and every once in a while, you need to cast far to catch Walter. So, today we present you with…
3 Ways to Cast Further
- Stop Your Rod Tip High. Almost everybody makes this mistake – you make a bunch of beautiful false casts with your rod tip traveling in a nice straight path, and then when you go to deliver the cast, you ‘reach back for a little extra’ and on the forward cast you make a giant move forward with your rod hand, which also turns into a giant move down with your rod hand, which drives the tip of your rod down towards the ground, which results in a giant open loop, which can’t cut through the air at all, and robs your cast of any chance of going any further than that last nice false cast you made. Don’t be that guy – use the same motion on your delivery as you made on your false casts, stopping the rod tip nice and high, resulting in a sweet tight loop that sends your fly into the next zip code.
- Drift – Don’t Creep. Don’t rob your cast of power by creeping into your forward cast and shortening your casting stoke. Great casters drift instead of creeping. Don’t worry if you have no idea what drifting and creeping are – FFF certified Deneki guy Kyle Shea recently wrote an expose on this whole topic, and you can get schooled on drift vs. creep by clicking right here. You’re welcome.
- Rotate Your Rod. If you’re launching pretty darned long casts already and you want to take things to 11, learn to rotate your rod when you’re shooting line to minimize the drag that occurs when your shooting line whacks back and forth against your rod. All the detail can be found here.
Originally published here.