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Hi! I'm Tim Landwehr from Tight Lines Fly Fishing Company. I'll be your host today on Midwest Sportsman. Today we're going to be talking about Fly Casting, probably the most essential important component of Fly Fishing. As a shop owner, I see this in off a lot where people neglect this one component more than any of the other stuff. I encourage all of you to take this underneath your belt and learn how to cast a fly well, because your success is going to completely depend on how well you present the fly.
In a store situation, you can come into a shop, and I can tell you what flies to use, I can say use this or use this. You can go to the river, I can't be there with you to actually make those casts and physically present those to the fish.
We're going to back up a little bit and take a look at what is fly casting, what's the difference between fly casting and casting with spinning tackle. The main difference between casting with a fly rod and casting with a spinning rod is, in spin fishing or fishing with gear, you're fishing with a lure or something that's heavily weighted, something that's got some mass to it. Attached to this lure would be a thin string of monofilament. You wind up with that thing. When you throw it, it has mass, it has weight. It will project out to your target or to your fish.
Now the opposite of that in fly fishing is, especially in trout fishing, we're going to be fishing it centrally with weightless weightless flies, something that's made out of fur, something that's made out of feathers, something that has absolutely no weight to it. So how do we deliver something that's completely weightless that if I try to throw this, it's not going to go anywhere. We have to actually cast the line itself. So let's take a little look at a fly rod and what its composition is or how we make that cast.
This is fly line. This is what is the mass that we're going to actually cast through the air. So the true difference is, we're casting the line, we're not necessarily casting the lure, we're casting the line. That's the major difference between spin fishing and fly fishing.
The other thing that's quite nice, for practicing in this segment of fly casting, is I'm going to be using a practice leader. It's kind of slick, this is a newer innovation, but it's entirely out of a fluorescent orange. So, it's a little easier for you to view our home to actually be able to see this. At the end of that, I've just simply put a piece of Yarn, and for practicing, we encourage you to use Yarn and not a fly itself. When you're learning it, you definitely don't need to be picking flies out of your skin.
The other thing that's very important, in casting or practicing or especially the fishing portion of it, is polarized glasses, because this thing is going to be winging past your head with the Yarn not quite as important but with a real fly, very, very important. So that's the important element.
The other thing is that I want all of you do at home is instead of necessarily picking up a fly rod and gaining your practice and gaining your skills out on the stream or out on the river, I'd encourage you to practice in an environment, in a setting, much like we're dealing with here, in open lawn, in open space.
In a lot of situations, fish get in the way. You're concentrating so much on the obvious how do I catch that fish, how do I catch that fish, that you're going to detract from, okay, that's just a bad cast. So, that's what I want you to do. So, what we're going to do now is we're going to get right into the basics of fly casting and teach you how to get to that level.
The first thing that we have to do is the grip and holding the fly rod itself. A lot of people when I thought class is, the first thing they do is they grab the cork like this, and start just waving the thing around. You don't want to hold the cork like this. The most important thing is you almost give the cork handle a handshake, just like this like you're extending your hand out and giving a handshake.
The thumb, the most critical component here is the thumb sits on top of the cork, like you see here. The reason for that is this is much like the bead on a shotgun. If you were shooting a shotgun, wherever you point that bead is where your spray is going to go. The same thing holds true in a fly cast. Wherever my thumb is pointed is where your fly is going to be delivered.
The other thing that's very important is how much pressure do you hold on to that fly rod or do you hold on to that cork. When we teach lessons in classes, I see students and I see clients from guide trips, they're stretching their hand like this, and just in a lot of pain and discomfort, because they're physically trying to turn this cork into a diamond by crushing it. The most important thing is just to keep a very relaxed controlled grip on it. You don't want to squeeze this thing down, you want to just hold it comfortably.
Now the stance itself when you're making a false cast, if I'm casting straight out at where my rod tip is, is I want to have my left foot set just a little bit forward and my back foot back a little bit like this. The reason for that is it gives me a stable ground. If both of my feet are completely straight like this, it'd be very easy to push me over and take me off of balance. But with my feet, one foot slightly in front of the other, one back like this, it allows me to have a lot more control and gives me a good proper stance, when I'm making the cast. So, now you have the grip, you've got the stance under control, you're ready to start the casting.
Now, out of everything that I'm going to tell you about fly casting, this is the major thing. There is no wrist in fly casting. When you're learning, there is absolutely zero wrist in fly casting. What will happen in a lot of situations is people will come in for a casting lesson with me or private casting lesson. The first thing they'll do is they'll say "Tim, I'm having problems with casting?" and I'll see them do this. The wrist is allover the place and they're using all wrist. The problem with your wrist is your wrist has very, very little strength in it. The fly cast comes entirely through your forearm. Your forearm is your muscle, this is where your strength lies.
The fly cast is boiled into a very simple step. It's an acceleration to a stop, and an acceleration to a stop, very abrupt stops, an abrupt stop back and an abrupt stop forward.
The other thing that's very important is how much power do I put into it. For those of you who have done some basic casting, what we've seen a lot of times is, especially if they're walleye fishermen or musky fishermen, they'll come back very softly and just wallop it forward, very softly and wallop it forward. The fly cast is equal amount of power on the back cast, equal amount of power on the front cast, no changes. Accelerate to a stop, equal power, accelerate to a stop, equal power. That's the basics of fly casting.
Now, the magic of this rod right here is that it's made out of a high modulus graphite and the qualities of these fly rods are so superior that it's going to make people better casters and give them a lot of energy in it, but it also acts as an idiot stick, and I've seen this on a number of occasions. After I go through, the basic cast what I tell everybody, do not use your wrist, accelerate to a stop, and I'll have you put your hand up like this and make those motions.
As soon as this fly rod goes into the hand, apparently it sucks all of that information out of your other ear, because then all of a sudden they're like, Oh yeah, I know how to do it, you know just like this. You just have to remember that, take those steps backwards, accelerate to a stop, accelerate to a stop, accelerate to a stop.
Now the other component is, before we actually get into the false casting in the videos, those of you who may have seen the movie 'A River Runs Through It' and they talk about 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock. He wears a pretty leather glove in a four-count rhythm and so on. Well, what they're referring to with this 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock situation is, if I were in my proper casting stance, the clock would be on my right-hand side. It's basically a wedge. This would be your 10 o'clock, this would be your 2 o'clock.
All that we're trying to get through your head is that stopping point, here at 10, here at 2. This is how the false cast is comprised, this is how a false cast is made up. That stop, there is a little pizza wedge right here. The shorter the fly cast, the shorter the stroke, the longer the fly cast, the longer the stroke. Now we're also going to get into some timing and some other basic things.
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