The basic overhead cast, demonstrated then you try
This is a new module, and the one most people have been waiting for. We covered the knot, the water, and the flies; now we take up the rod itself. Some of you have been patient about the sequence, and I appreciate it.
A note on emphasis, though. The cast is the element people are most anxious about and, from a teaching standpoint, the one I weight least. A competent cast at ordinary range is not difficult. You do not need to match the angler in the fly shop calendar. You need to deliver a fly to a target without spooking the fish or hooking a neighbor. That is the whole requirement.
What the cast actually is
Disregard the large sweeping loops from films. For a beginner on a Utah river, the overhead cast reduces to three parts: back, pause, forward.
The rod loads like a diving board. You bend it back, it stores energy and wants to snap forward, and the line follows the rod tip. Your task is mainly to stop the rod cleanly at two points, not to force the line anywhere.
The demonstration, in words since you can't see me
I will show this in person first, so watch my hand rather than the fly. Described in sequence, here is what I am doing:
- Start with the rod tip low, pointed at the water, with roughly ten feet of line out.
- Lift and accelerate the rod back, stopping it near one o'clock, taking twelve as straight up. Not all the way behind you. Stop hard, as though flicking paint off a paintbrush.
- Pause. This is the part everyone rushes and the part that matters most. You are waiting for the line to straighten fully behind you. Move too early and you will hear a crack like a whip — that is the fly popping off because you came forward before the line caught up.
- Come forward, stopping the rod near ten o'clock, and let the line lay out in front of you.
That is the entire motion: back, pause, forward. I sometimes hum through it to hold the rhythm — "back... and... forward."
Now you try
I will not lecture for twenty minutes and then release you; that approach makes people go flat and stop having fun. We will work in short repetitions.
Attempt five casts. Only five. I will watch and offer one correction, not four, because a pile of corrections leaves nobody able to remember any of them. The single correction is usually: pause longer than feels natural. Everyone rushes the pause initially. Waiting feels wrong, and then it feels great once you do it.
Points I will be watching for: - Rod traveling too far back. If you can see the rod tip behind your head, you have gone too far, and the line dumps in a heap. - Casting with the whole arm rather than mostly the wrist and forearm. A large, loose arm motion disrupts the timing. - Watching the fly instead of the rod tip. Your eyes belong on where the line is going, not fixed on the fly the whole time.
None of this needs to look polished today. It needs to function, roughly three times out of five; next session it becomes four out of five.
One observation, since we're here
The principle I always state: a beautiful cast into water with no fish in it catches nothing. A clumsy cast that lands six inches off a seam where a trout is actually holding will outfish it every time. Do not become so absorbed in casting form that you neglect everything we covered a few lessons back — reading the water. The cast is only the delivery truck. The water is the reason you are standing there.
Talk while you cast, please
Also, and I mean this: you do not need to be quiet or reverent out there. Many people psych themselves out about fly fishing, treating it as a silent meditative exercise, when in fact you will learn faster if you are relaxed enough to laugh at your own mistakes. Talk to the person beside you. Make your errors loudly. It is fine.
This brings me to Tricia. I have told this to nearly every class I have taught, and I will tell it again because it is true and it still bothers me slightly. She came out with me once, sat on the bank with a book, and was not planning to fish. I set my rod down for a moment to deal with something in my vest, and she picked it up simply to feel it, made one cast — the second cast of her entire life — and caught a fish. Sitting down. In jeans. I had been out there for two hours. I am still not over it. The point is that getting a fly in front of a fish does not require years of serious effort. Sometimes it requires a second cast and a person who is not overthinking it.
One safety note, plain
When practicing your backcast, actually look behind you before you begin, particularly the first several times. A hook moving at speed near someone's ear is a serious hazard, pinched barb or not — ask me sometime about my ear. Give yourself room. In a group like ours, that means casting when it is your turn, not all at once.
Before next time
At home, run the "back, pause, forward" motion a few times without a rod, so your arm learns the rhythm. Tricia thinks I look ridiculous doing this in the kitchen. She is probably right.