Ed Jaworowski's Functional Fly Casting, Video 4: Focus on the Backcast

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Casting master Ed Jaworowski takes a deep dive into the fundamentals of fly casting in his five-part series “Functional Fly Casting,” which ran in each issue of Fly Fisherman in 2025. This is the fourth video. 

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The backcast is fundamentally important, yet is so often ignored. It employs the exact same physics and mechanics as the forward cast, simply moving in a different direction. In one sense, however, it is even more important than the forward cast, because the forward cast directly depends upon it, and many forward cast problems stem from a poor or inadequate backcast. Despite this, too few anglers focus on the backcast. Many fly fishers fail to practice it, thoughtfully consider its importance, or even turn their heads and look at what is going on behind them.

The majority of fly casters allow the line to straighten completely on the backcast before beginning the forward cast. However, the first principle of casting is that you must get the end of the line moving before beginning the acceleration that loads the rod. I’m aware that many will take exception to this advice, but I advise my students to never allow the line to completely straighten on the backcast before going forward. If you allow the backcast to fully straighten, the line stops moving. A motionless line has expended its energy, lost tension on the rod tip, started to fall, and created slack. This delays loading on the forward cast, because you waste the first part of your forward stroke removing the slack and regaining tension on the rod tip.

While this may not be a big problem when making short casts with small flies, it is poor technique and creates a series of other issues in many fishing situations. The problems grow exponentially when you are making longer casts or attempting to toss bulky poppers, large streamers, weighted flies, or heavy sinking lines.

To demonstrate this principle, make a backcast with a heavy Clouser Minnow or Woolly Bugger. If you wait until the fly straightens out and you feel a tug on your backcast, you will likely lose control of the cast. That’s because reaction time for most people—meaning the time it takes for your hand to react to your brain’s decision to move—is in the vicinity of one-quarter to one-third of a second. That’s enough time for the fly to straighten, bounce back, and create slack in the system.

Another questionable practice is “drift.” This is the often-recommended practice of stopping your hand and rod at one point, then allowing your hand to move even farther to the rear after the rod has unloaded and the line is unrolling. This might be advisable in some special situations, but not as a rule.

A common claim is that this drift movement allows a longer stroke to help load the rod on the forward cast. Since a longer stroke is advantageous, why would you not take the same approach on the backcast? Rather than stopping at one fixed point then taking the hand back farther, why not continue to accelerate and stop at the farther forward point? You will accelerate over a longer distance, create more rod load while using no more force, and still have the advantage of a longer forward stroke.

Taking the rod back farther on the backcast does not cause the line to hit the water, as some think. The line can only go in the direction that the tip is traveling when it straightens. If the line does hit the water, it is not a result of taking the rod back too far, but rather of directing the tip downward toward the water at the end of a long stroke. That’s what happens if you take the rod well back with an overhead or vertical stroke. To avoid this, simply take the rod off that vertical plane and extend your arm to the rear so that, when it straightens, the rod directs the line straight to the rear or at a rising angle.

Here’s another important point. The backcast does not always simply have to be a prelude to a forward cast. Frequently it can, should, or must be used to make a presentation. For example, bushes or other obstacles close to your casting arm such as a fishing partner in a boat may prevent normal arm or rod movement.

Once, when fishing for striped bass on Cape Cod, I was casting to the right side of the skiff from the bow. In order to avoid gear, rods, and people inside the boat, I was compelled to deliver my flies up to 100 feet distant with my backcast over the course of two days. In effect, my forward cast became my backcast. You can also negate the effects of a strong wind against your casting arm by turning your back to it and delivering the fly with your backcast.

In another episode while fishing for striped bass on Chesapeake Bay, my partner in the boat was a reasonably decent caster. However, he never changed his stance or stroke. He always moved the rod in the same vertical plane, his backcast always traveled upward and stopped at about the same point (around 1 o’clock), and his forward cast always traveled downward. When I called his attention to a fish that swirled 70 feet behind us, he used his regular backcast. He leaned backward from the waist and, despite great effort and a mighty haul, drove the tip downward. His cast piled on the water 30 feet short of the target.

Had he simply brought his right foot back and turned to his right (he was right-handed), and made a sidearm backcast, he could have easily delivered the fly well beyond 70 feet—had that been called for. He would have made a great presentation with far less effort than he used in making a bad cast. The backcast is no more always an “up stroke” than a forward cast is always a “down stroke.”

Practice will enable you to develop backcasts as tight, fast, accurate, and long as your best forward casts. Here’s an effective drill to develop acceleration and direction control in your backcast: Lay a “target line” on the ground (a clothes line or garden hose will do). Stand at one end of the line with about 30 feet of fly line on the grass in front of you. For the purpose of this drill, stand with your body turned a bit to the side, rather than facing straight ahead (e.g. to the right, if right-handed) and cast sidearm to the rear; no forward cast is involved. Start slowly, smoothly accelerate your hand, and instantly check its movement, almost as if releasing a Frisbee. Do not reach out with your arm and rod to follow the line.

Gradually try to finish with your rod pointing farther and farther to the rear. Practice until the line rolls out completely in a tight loop a few feet above the ground and the line falls alongside or even straight on top of the target line on the ground, without collapsing or going off at an angle. Ultimately, you want the rod to finish pointing directly to the rear, and the line to shoot straight out from the rod tip and align with your marker on the ground. Repeated practice will develop muscle memory.

Before starting the drill, mark your fly line with a Sharpie. Practice with the same length until you achieve your goals. Gradually increase the line you can handle in 6- to 8-foot increments and continue to practice with longer lengths of line.

When you can make straight, tight, smooth backcasts to 50 feet or more, combine them with your forward cast, with this one important caveat: As suggested earlier, because of the mind’s reaction time, anticipate the final straightening of the line and start forward a split second before it actually completes its rollout.

Start your forward cast when the loop resembles a candy cane or fish hook. The line should never stop moving, but merely reverse direction as you start your forward motion. When you can smoothly combine the back and forward casts, vary the casting planes. Go from sidearm to a bit higher, eventually overhead, even over your opposite shoulder.

Using a Hula Hoop as a target is another excellent way to help you develop great backcasts. Mount it vertically on a pole about eye height and shoot through it at increasing distances. Disciplined practice will develop efficient backcasts and will open up endless opportunities whether you’re fishing trout streams, large rivers, lakes, or the open ocean.

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Ed Jaworowski is the author of Perfecting the Cast: Adapting Casting Principles for Any Fly-Fishing Situation (Stackpole Books, 2021) and coauthor of Pop Fleyes: Bob Popovics’s Approach to Saltwater Fly Design (Stackpole Books, 2014).