The Five Essentials of Fly Casting

When making a successful fly cast, there are a ton of things that vary. With that in mind, we consider Five Essentials that remain true for all efficient casts regardless of a person’s casting style. The Five Essentials are considered fundamental basic building blocks for wide range of casts to meet the countless situations that come up while fly fishing. Put simply, we must:

1. Eliminate Slack
2. Accelerate Smoothly to a crisp stop
3. Straight Line Path of the rod tip
4. Casting Arc must vary with the amount of fly line
5. Pause between back cast and forward cast

Eliminate Slack

Before we begin our cast, we need to be sure we have removed excess line outside the rod tip and have anchored the line. To anchor the line, we can use our rod hand by gripping the line against the cork or we can use the line hand (typically we use the thumb and forefinger on the hand not holding the rod).

If we start our casting stroke with a pile of line at our feet, we waste a portion of the casting arc removing slack. If there is no slack in the system, the fly will move as soon as the rod tip moves.

How do we remove slack? We can strip in excess line or roll cast our line into a better pick-up position. We want our rod tip pointing toward our fly line and fly.

Accelerate Smoothly

This is how we apply power to the rod and use the mass of the fly line to load or bend the rod. The amount of force we apply varies depending on several conditions, but the HOW we apply force remains the constant. Once slack is removed, begin slow and smoothly accelerate to a crisp STOP at the end of the casting arc. For proper acceleration, remember:

Start Slow – Finish Fast

Straight Line Path

To sum this up in one sentence: the line will follow the path of the rod tip. With no slack in the system, we smoothly accelerate to a stop, and as we load the rod, it bends. The bend in the rod makes up for the circular rotation created when we move the rod from forward at and angle to overhead and slightly past vertical.

If we don’t accelerate smoothly and we apply the improper amount of force, the rod will bend either too little and create a convex path or the rod will bend too much and create a convex path. The convex path of the rod tip creates a wide loop, which is generally inefficient (though it has its proper applications). The concave path of the rod tip creates what is called a tailing loop, where the fly leg dips below the rod leg, and creates wind knots (aka bad casting knots).

With the proper acceleration, we create narrow loops that are 4′ wide or less with parallel rod and fly legs.

 

Casting Arc

 If we begin the cast with our forearm, we call that translation. As we continue to accelerate, we rotate with the wrist. Translation and Rotation are what make up our Casting Arc.

Flat First – Rotate Late

The important thing to remember about the casting arc is that it should match the amount of line we have outside the rod tip.

Short Cast = Short Line = Smaller Casting Arc, Long Cast = Long Line = More Casting Arc.

Pause

At the end of our Casting Arc, we finish accelerating with a crisp STOP. This stop is what forms our loop. At this point, we need to pause to let our loop unfold. The duration of the pause will vary with the length of the line. A trick to pausing for the correct amount of time is to think of your cast in 180 degrees. Just before the line straightens on your forward cast, you can begin your back cast. Unless you are shooting large amounts of line (we’ll talk about that more in the future) the pause will be the same on back as it is in the front.

If we pause too long, our line will end up in the water behind us or on the ground. If we don’t pause long enough, we hear a whipping sound. If you are dead set on idolizing Hank Patterson, use a short pause and “Snap It!”

Short Cast = Short Line = Short Pause   |    Long Cast = Long Line = Long Pause.

Practice and master the basics. They are the building blocks for all of the casts you can make with a fly rod. If you are having any issues with your cast, be sure to start with the 5 Essentials to begin to correct your cast.