72 - How to cast a fly better: 7 top tips and common faults fixed!

How to cast a fly better: 7 top tips and common faults fixed!

Of the various key skills in fly fishing, casting is the most crucial of all!  Besides practice, however, there are various ways to improve, develop good habits and iron out common faults.  Useful stuff, whether you are a beginner learning to fly cast or a more experienced angler looking to brush up their skills with a fly rod.

1. Relax… and stop ‘throwing’!

One of the most curious things about the art of fly casting is how you cannot win with mere force! It is not a test of strength, but timing and control. One of the most important aspects is therefore to keep your casting action measured and not “thrashy”.

One common fault here, especially if you come from a background in sea or coarse fishing, is to try and “throw” the line out. The more you try to do this, the more your arm will tend to come away from the body- and the more you start swinging, the less control you have.

Avoid “throwing” and relax, keeping your elbow to your side.

Instead, aim to keep your arm relaxed and your elbow at your side. When I was taught, the instructor said “imagine you’re holding a whisky bottle under your arm!”. I’m not sure I like this, because I’d be tense if it was a single malt!  The bottom line here is to keep relaxed and avoid that arm coming out from your body and “throwing”!

2. Avoid rotation or “breaking the wrist”

Another key aspect of control in fly casting is to keep the rod handle steady and close to your wrist. The reel itself is like an indicator- if your hand keeps rotating and the reel keeps moving away from your wrist, casts tend to lose momentum (although there will be some “rotation” –especially as you add distance).

A rod wrap can help you avoid “breaking the wrist” for smoother casting.

One helpful saying here is the old cliché that “the rod should be an extension of your arm”. In other words, try and keep the butt of the rod and the reel fairly tight against your wrist so there is, roughly speaking, a straight line from your elbow to the rod tip. One handy way to smooth things up if you’re struggling is to tuck the butt into your sleeve- or, better still, use a rod wrap (above). Notice how things quickly get smoother!

3. Clean stops make for clean casts

Stop that rod cleanly behind you- and if in doubt, look over your shoulder!

Another truism of fly casting is that your forward casts are only as good as your back casts! When you bring the rod back to make your back cast, you are aiming to do so smoothly and make a nice, clean “stop”. If the rod goes too far back, or you allow it to drift or wobble, the line will do the same!

Let the rod stop crisply behind you as you make the backward stroke, and the line will straighten out far more neatly. Over time, you should get a feel as it “loads” but there is no harm in looking over your shoulder to observe this (which also helps where you might have trees or limited space behind!).

4. Limit your false casts

We all love making “falsies” – those extra casts where we get more line in the air and take another forward and back cast. So many of these are needless, though! We all do it- because fly casting feels nice and it’s tempting to add “just one more” false cast to hit the target. So often that “one extra” is where we come unstuck, however. So often, the one before was just fine!

It’s also fair to say that the more false casts we make, the more tangles we get, the more fish we spook and the less time we actually spend fishing. So, instead, get disciplined and cut out the waste. A good general rule is no more than TWO false casts for a short delivery and no more than THREE falsies for a longer shot. Try it! You might still find yourself itching to do that one extra, but your casting and fishing will almost certainly get sharper and more efficient.

5. Treat yourself to top quality line

A quality line will set you in good stead- you won’t go far wrong with Cortland’s classic 444, but the Fair Play lines also great for those on a budget

One thing you see at fisheries all over the country are ancient fly lines that should have been changed ages ago. Not to mention newcomers starting out with posh fly reels loaded with cheap and dodgy lines!  

In short, it pays to invest in a good quality line and to look after it. Sure, it costs a few quid more to buy a great line than a “mill end” – but why hamper your fishing? Cortland’s Classic 444 is my absolute first choice, general use floating fly line- although for those on a budget the “Fair Play” series is great value too.

Don’t just chuck your fly line into the bag and forget about it between trips either. You don’t want to be cleaning it with any general use detergents, which could make it sink or degrade- but some regular TLC  with nothing more than a cotton pad and warm water is a great habit. 

How long does fly line last? Well, that depends how often you use it and how badly you abuse it! If it is visibly cracked, had ingrained dirt or is rough to the touch, it is generally time to move on. You wouldn’t fish with a damaged rod or broken reel, so why put up with crummy line? Treat yourself!

6. Watch yourself back!

Most mobiles take video. Recording yourself is great for improving your fly casts!

For all the ills of tech, one very useful aspect of mobile phones is that virtually all of us can now video ourselves. This can be really helpful when learning to cast with a fly rod, or trying to improve your skills or cast further! This tends to reveal a lot of details you wouldn’t otherwise be aware of.

Put your phone in a suitable holder, hit record and you can easily watch your casting. What do you notice? Does your rod stop cleanly and early, or does it waft back too far? Is your forward cast nice and smooth, or are you a little forceful.

Let’s be clear here- nobody is perfect and few of us like to look at our faults. But get over that icky feeling and reviewing your casting is a great way to improve.  And most of those little faults can be tidied up! The alternative, of course, is to get a friend or, even better, a fly fishing coach to watch you and make some suggestions.

7. Practice ONE thing at a time!

As the saying goes, whether you want to learn the piano or cast a fly better, practice makes perfect. BUT… there is a lot going on with a cast, especially if you are new to the game. Should you concentrate on stopping your back cast earlier, your wrist position or your stance?? That’s a lot of bandwidth taken up, while you are juggling line in real time!

One of the best ever tips for learning how to cast with a fly rod is therefore to focus on ONE thing at a time. In other words, when you are practising, just isolate a single aspect rather than getting jumbled. In other words, you might say “right, for the next few casts, the only thing I am going to focus on is stopping the rod cleanly behind me” or “how I follow through on the last forward cast” or another aspect.

Try it next time you practice- most of the people I teach to cast have one or two recurring habits that need most work. It is so helpful to simplify these and take them in isolation rather than cramming your brain with too much. It’s like going from juggling four or five balls, to catching just one!

And finally… find the cast that suits you!

I hope all the above tips have been useful- but the best advice I can give you is to relax, focus on thing at a time and practice, practice practice! And if you want to learn fly rod casting from scratch or aim to take your casting up a level, do also consider hiring a coach for a session. Quite often, this is something I do with guests as part of a days guided fishing here in Devon- and time spent practising and having a helpful observer present is never wasted.

The ultimate aim of casting: not winning style points, but putting your fly in front of a fish without scaring it!

One final point here is that casting is something we all develop and improve at over years as anglers. You do not need to be some sort of Jedi Master to cast neatly and keep growing as an angler! For the vast majority of us, it is not about finding the ultimate textbook cast, but developing a cast that works for us. Getting our fly out far enough to find the fish without scaring them will do just fine.

Granted, casting is one of the great joys of the sport and if you get really serious, there are endless refinements to make and casts to master. For those who fish cramped waters such as small streams, side casting will be rewarding; for distance casting on larger waters or in the sea, you would be well advised to learn the double haul. As a coach, it baffles me at times why people will spend years struggling or buying ever more expensive rods, when half a day with a coach could improve their casting or give new skills they then have for life.