How to Perform Roll Cast and the Overhead Cast

Fly Fishing Basics with Tim Gaunt-Baker ~The Roll Cast ~The Overhead Cast NorfolkFlyFishiG.com Tim Gaunt-Baker Tim: Alright as I was mentioning before we’re going to do the two building blocks of live fishing. The roll cast and the overhead cast. The first one is the roll cast. Now, what I want to show you is the hand position. I do three areas so I want to do it fairly close to the camera so you can see how I’m holding the rod, a little further away so you can see the angle of things and then the third one a bit more distance to show you how it works and finally we’ll do these casts on the water so you can see from the start. So let’s first of all, how we hold the rod, holding the rod lightly in the hand like this, don’t grip it too tightly. The rod is of an extension of your arm. You only need to do to make this roll cast is to point the rod straight up in the sky like that so when the fly comes off, the line comes up your right shoulder and your firm is off your right eyebrow. This is if you’re right handed. Please reverse this if you’re left handed. Having done so all you need to do is to drive this hand forward to a quick stop like that and the line will go out to the water. Now I’m going to do this a little further away so you can see it a bit easier. Start again and the first thing you do is lift the rod up, the line comes sliding in toward you off your right eyebrow like this nice and high, all we need to do is drive this hand forward to a firm stop at eleven o’clock. And we’ll try it a further away still so you might see the whole picture. This time I start with the rod to tip up the water and take the rod up high and lead the way for my body the line will come floating into my right side, my thumbs up my right eyebrow and I drive forward and stop at eleven o’clock and there we are. Now what are we going to do now is do this cast in the water for you later so that you can see it later. Thank you. Now the next cast is the overhead cast where you are talking about same group as we had before and what I need to do here is to hold the rod gently in my hand, again an extension in my arm and what we do here is we do exactly the same lift but we accelerate this thumb right here to my right eyebrow and I like to say to people it’s a zip cast, you accelerate to a speedy stop at twelve o’clock, zip. Pause and tap forward. Now you probably got the half of that rich movement there stop, stop. I do not use my wrist in this cast. The biggest fault with this cast is that and that and as you can see the line gets tangled behind you. I’m going to move further away so you can see a bit more of that cast so that I put it together. So that will lie straight on the water, broad tip at the water, lift the line, start the line moving, accelerate to the firm stop and tap forward. Then we’re going to go zip and tap and that’s all it is. It’s the basic overhead cast. Move further away still so you might see a bit more, again you notice when I stop my rod tip down by the water in this case the grass lift, accelerate, zip and tap. Now that ladies and gentlemen is the easiest cast you’ll ever make that I can assure is the best one you’ll ever use to catch fish with. Thank you very much, we’re going to move down to the water now and we’re moving down here. Right here we are down the riverside, this is a roll cast. It is a bit lined out in the water. The second roll cast is when I shoot the line to get more distance and this time I did an overhead cast which is just stopping around at twelve o’clock making the line straight in the canal, we’ve done two of those now. And the third one I’m going to shoot some line out, have you seen the line just shut out of my hand. Now in turning around that’s a snap t, to turn the line around so when you cast down the stream around and this normally counts over my left shoulder. This is what we do if the wind had been blowing on to your right shoulder. And suppose the overhead cast such as the straight line casting and then changing direction. Now we come to roll cast again using the de loop behind you see we got there and then again de-loop off your left shoulder. These are all for safety cast so that a line doesn’t come anywhere near you. Now moving around now to another roll cast and I’m shooting line this one to get more distance and we will use this cast very effectively from little rivers like this, again underneath bushes. Again it’s coming off my left shoulder not coming off the side to get to the bank there. Again I can meet across and that’s we start right there. This is how you shouldn’t be doing, an overcast--line switching not good at all. I will tell you what if you did this a lot you would be fed up of fishing by that time. It is so much easier to get that once the first is shot through the shoulder. Here’s a roll cast, nice gentle cast again. This one is actually an accelerated roll cast so that the line comes back a bit quicker. An over head cast again and return it. Again shoots and the line and change ground again to go downstream so you can see it from the other shoulder again. Bringing the line from the side, that’s what I’m saying and bringing that on the left shoulder and keep the fly a little over. That’s not how to do it, definitely not how to do it. You’re thrashing water close frightening the fish. Nice gentle— ooh bad not going far there and the roll cast again behind the shoulder. Now you can cast with the line behind you. If we did this in slow motion you can actually see the rod stopping and then drifting back a bit further stopping Thanks for watching! If you enjoyed this video and found it useful in some way, please rate and comment below. Happy Fishing!