how to fly fish

Learning to add line to the cast is the key to distance-casting. photo by Steve Hemkens

In our last lesson, we learned how to control the line hand during casting, as well as how to “shoot” line by releasing the line at the end of the forward cast. After shooting the line, you then pinched the against the cork handle in what we call the “fishing position.”

 

Now we’re going to put lessons 1 and 2 together to learn how to add line to the cast during false casting. This is the skill that allows you to lengthen your casts after you’ve stripped line in.

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Last week we discussed the basics of the front and back casts, using a simple pick-up-and-lay-down drill with the line pinched against the cork grip. Now it’s time to add the “line hand,” the one that controls the fly line during the cast, and discuss shooting line to lengthen the cast.

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Orvis head instructor Truel Myers.

[Editor’s note: Over the next couple of weeks, Truel Myers, head instructor at the Orvis Fly-Fishing Schools, will walk us through The Orvis Progressive Method to Fly Casting. This is the teaching methodology used at all Orvis fly-fishing schools, and it’s designed on a building-blocks approach that begins with the most basic mechanics of the cast and moves toward the double haul.]

Step 1. The Basic (Pick-up and Lay-Down) Casting Stroke

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Even when you’re moving to a different part of the river, you can keep your fly in the water. Trout will often hit a trailing streamer, nymph, or even dry fly. photo by Jay Morr

There’s an old saying among fishermen: You can’t catch fish if your line isn’t in the water. I believe that this is one of the reasons that wives often outfished their more-experienced husbands on float trips when I guided on the Yellowstone and in Alaska. Whereas the husband recognized every great trout lie the boat floated past and felt the need to cast to all of them, the wife was generally more content to keep a given drift going as long as possible. Every time the husband picked up his line and started false-casting, he was taking himself out of the game.

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