The author's rod and line form a flat line on the backcast and are positioned for maximum rod load on the forward cast. His hand is well to the rear to create a longer stroke and his rod tip starts low to help angle the forward cast upward for maximum distance. (Sam Talarico photo)
November 20, 2024
By Ed Jaworowski
Editor's Note: Stay tuned for a 5-part series on "Functional Fly Casting" by Ed Jaworowski coming in 2025, starting with the Feb.-March issue in early January. Each installment will feature a print article accompanied by a corresponding video right here on flyfisherman.com. You won't want to miss Ed's one-of-a-kind casting instruction!
This article originally appeared in the July 2005 issue of Fly Fisherman.
All serious fly fishers would like to cast better . If you want to move ahead, here is a game plan for remedying problems and improving your casting.
This isn't a way to cast but instead a way to think about casting. I have long preached that there are no advanced mistakes. All casting errors involve violations of basic mechanics. I'm a staunch fundamentalist: Know what must happen in terms of mechanics to make any cast, and then make it happen.
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Physics comes first, not casting rules, instruction, style, or technique. Before you can correctly analyze and diagnose your cast, you must understand the principles that determine the outcome of all casts. Then you can decide whether your cast conforms to those principles or violates them. Common sense tells you specifically what you must do to correct each cast.
Anglers too often think of casting as a series of dos and don'ts. We are told, and believe, that if we adhere to the dos, and avoid the don'ts, our casts will succeed. So we stand a certain way, hold the rod at a certain angle, point it a certain direction, move the arm to a certain stopping point, and so on.
Of course, anyone with experience knows these instructions fail to produce good casts as often as they succeed. They fail because we ask the wrong questions and get hung up on rules. Never ask "What do I do?" without also asking·”Why?”
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Fly Casting Principles Casting is not an art. It is a mechanical procedure and a matter of angles and levers, but you don't have to be a mathematician or physicist to observe and appreciate the workings. Here are the principles that apply to every cast.
Principle 1. You can't bend the rod until you have line tension against the rod tip. This means you must eliminate slack in the line before attempting a cast. You must also be careful not to introduce slack at any point during the casting stroke.
Principle 2. Every cast should start slowly and constantly move the hand faster toward a quick stop. The phrases "speed up and stop" or “power stroke" are often applied to final part of the casting stroke, but the hand must increase in speed from the start to the end of the stroke for maximum efficiency. The faster the hand moves, the more the bend, or load, of the rod develops. If the hand stops accelerating, but continues moving at a constant speed, no additional load develops. If the hand slows, the load diminishes. When the hand stops abruptly, the rod quickly straightens and launches the line.
Words can't translate the subtle feel of casting, but images like throwing paint from a paintbrush or flicking an apple from the end of a stick are common. Try to toss a ring from a wooden dowel and you'll get the idea. It involves a slow start, continuous acceleration, and a quick stop.
In order to cast farther, defeat wind, or throw a bigger fly, you must put a greater bend in the rod by using more hand speed combined with a quicker stop. However, unless your hand and arm move farther, you will end up working harder.
Principle 3. To produce more load without more effort, make the stroke longer. If, for example, a 12-inch stroke produces a certain load in the rod, you would generate a lot more load if you continued accelerating for 19 inches. Imagine throwing a baseball. You make a short arm movement for a short toss and a longer motion for a longer throw, simply because it gives you more time to build up speed. The same principle applies to golf, tennis, and most other athletic activities. Longer strokes allow more speed with less effort.
Principle 4. The final motion of the rod tip, when the rod straightens after you stop your hand, determines the line's trajectory and direction. If the rod tip is going downward, the line goes downward. If the tip curves, the line also curves.
You can categorize or describe these principles differently, combine them, even add to them, but I've never seen a cast, good or bad, that can't be analyzed in these terms. These principles are invariable–no options, alternatives, or exceptions. What does change, endlessly, is the way you apply them. The actual casting stroke–the speed, distance, and direction of the hand, arm, and rod movement–changes endlessly while fishing, depending on the results you want, changing conditions, and obstacles.
To this degree, casting is analogous to golf, in that two strokes are seldom the same. The distance, lie, wind, and obstructions compel golfers to change their club, stance, grip, stroke length and direction, and swing speed. It is the same with casting. You can't determine the proper casting stroke until you first specify the desired result, and that changes from one cast to the next. A certain stroke or movement may be perfect for one cast, and wrong for another. I can't overemphasize this point. Avoid any instruction that dictates a specific motion without qualification.
Casting is not a matter of moving or not moving the elbow, bending or not bending the wrist, or stopping at one point or another. It is a matter of doing what is required from a mechanical standpoint for a particular situation. Don't be concerned with whether it looks right but whether it works right.
This doesn't mean you can do anything as long as the line gets out there, because some movements are more efficient than others. The best casts require minimum effort. You should always strive for efficiency.
Correcting Your Cast The casts illustrated here violate one or more basic principles by creating slack, using too little acceleration, limiting stroke length, or traveling the wrong direction. Dozens of other faulty casts can be similarly diagnosed by referring to the same fundamentals.
A wide, open loop (left) indicates lack of continuous acceleration and quick stop, usually coupled with the tip finishing downward. A tight loop (below) results from fast hand acceleration and stop, with the tip, as it straightens, projecting the line directly forward. (Greg Pearson illustrations) Note the downward direction and angle of the line on this backcast (left). This indicates good hand acceleration and stop, but the caster tries to stop the rod in a vertical position. The tip over-swings and directs the line down, putting a downward angle in the line. When the caster moves the rod forward, it won't bend until the slack created by that angle is gone. This wastes the first part of the casting stroke, making the actual stroke shorter and harder than necessary. The nicely rounded loop (right) was formed by sticking the rod tip more to the rear at the end of the cast. When the caster moves the rod forward, it loads instantly, making the effective stroke longer and therefore easier. (Greg Pearson illustrations) Note the position of the arm and rod just as the caster starts the forward cast (top). This is the position many instructors, manuals, and films recommend as proper form. While it may not be categorically wrong it should not be considered right in all situations or accepted as a norm. This starting position works line for short casts with light lines and flies but requires a short, more difficult stroke that often causes the rod tip to come downward at the end of the forward stroke, making distance casts impossible. With the rod farther back and lower at the start of the forward cast (bottom), as well as more to the side, a longer stroke is possible. The lip also straightens going ahead or slightly rising at the end of the cast. This combination makes longer casts easier. (Greg Pearson illustrations) Sometimes good-looking casts don't travel as far or as fast as we expect and the cause is overlooked or wrongly diagnosed. Often it's because casters unknowingly unload the rod while they are trying to load it by not moving the line hand. In the top illustration, the distance between the line hand and the stripping guide on the rod is about three feet when the caster begins the forward cast. At the finish of the cast (bottom), the distance is only one foot. During the cast, the rod hand moved closer to the line hand, which was stationary. This means two feet of slack was created while trying to load the rod. The solution is to let the line hand move back with the rod hand on the backcast and lead the rod hand during the forward cast, so there is no appreciable difference in the distance between the hands. It is most efficient to have the line hand move away from the rod hand while the rod hand is speeding up. That's how hauls work. (Greg Pearson illustrations) Analysis and Diagnosis To diagnose any cast, observe the loop in the line as it unrolls. It usually provides all the information you need to improve a cast. Note the loop shape, size, direction, energy/speed, and angle relative to the rod tip.
By shape I mean symmetry, which is more important than whether the loop is wide or narrow. Asymmetrical loops belie inefficiency. In terms of size, tight loops are more desirable than wide loops, most of the time.
You can determine the direction or trajectory of a cast (straight, downward, upward) by comparing the location of the tip when the rod starts to load with its location when the rod straightens. Simply connect the two points.
As for energy, a line must travel with enough energy to turn over the required length of line, leader, and fly, but no more than needed. If the line and leader fail to carry the desired distance, the rod lacked load and a faster hand acceleration and stop are required.
Finally, the angle between the rod and the line when the rod starts to load is critical. For short casts, the angle may be approximately 90 degrees but should be progressively larger, up to 180 degrees with the rod and fly line forming a straight line, for casts that require maximum rod load. If you understand and accept these ideas, you can diagnose your casts, and decide how to remedy them.
Once you determine what part of your cast needs to be fixed, practice just that element. Decide first what you want the line to do and where you want it to go. For example, for a longer cast, continuously speed the hand over a longer distance and do not stroke downward. It's easier to achieve this by casting the rod more to the side when conditions permit. Repeat this forward stroke endlessly, casting the line off the ground behind you, until it feels comfortable and natural.
If you are casting into a wind, stroke so the rod tip directs the line straight into the wind when it unloads. Don't chop down toward the water. The easiest way to achieve this is to start your forward cast with the rod well to the rear. If you want the line to hook to the right or left, the rod tip must snap straight in that direction. To make this happen, make a quick turn of your hand just before you stop. Practice these and all other strokes over and over. Try to master them one at a time, casting with your rod and arm in different positions: overhead, side arm, over your opposite shoulder, short, long, downward, and upward. Through it all, keep your body and arm as loose and relaxed as possible. Tension restricts movement.
Remember, don't start with instruction; start with physics. You can only use, or abuse, the principles. They explain why casts work and why they don't. They tell you what you have to do to make certain casts, as well as what you are doing wrong in others. So when someone asks me, for example, whether the wrist should bend, the elbow move, or the rod go beyond 1 o'clock, my answer is always "maybe."
Ed Jaworowski is the author of The Cast and Pop Fleyes . He lives in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania.
