FLY CASTING FROM THE BEGINNING

Jim Green, 1971

Fenwick Publications

Jimmy Green burst on the casting scene in the 1947  National Association of Angling and Casting Clubs National Championships  by setting a new world record in the salmon fly distance event (two handed rod, similar to a spey rod) with an average of 198 2/3 feet and a long cast of 206 feet. He also won the wet fly accuracy title with a perfect score of 100. Jim had won the Distance Trout Fly title in the 1946 tournament but lost out in that event in 1947 to Marvin Hedge, the man who introduced the double haul to the world in the 1934 National Championship Tournament. In this same tournament Joan Salvato (now known as Wulff) shot a 98 in the professional division of wet fly and a 99 dry fly even though she was not yet old enough to vote.

Jimmy Green went on to a lifelong career in the tackle industry   including many years designing graphite fly rods for major high end rod manufacturers. He still rolls experimental graphite fly rods from scratch in his basement   and fishes them and casts them in tournaments.  In 1971 Jim Green wrote the subject book for the Fenwick people and it has been a staple of  club fly casting classes ever since.

This 80 page soft cover pamphlet sized book is designed to be portable so the fisher can review it in the field. Chapters 1 and 2 deal with reasons for fishing with a fly rod and the equipment and chapter 3 starts the ball rolling for the student. The thumb on top grip is proposed and the caster starts with the butt section of the rod and slow motion with and eleven to one o'clock stroke described thus:

A. 11 o'clock position

B. Power stroke with slight upward drift

C. Stop at 1 o'clock

D. Open wrist, allow rod to drift back.

This is done with the rod held so that it is in line with the forearm and with no wrist movement prior to the drift at 1 o'clock. He emphasizes a stopping the hand movement at 1, not at 1:30 or 2.

This is done slowly and is followed by a slow forward cast:

A. Backcast extended wrist open.

B. Forward power stroke, wrist closing throughout.

C. Stop at 11: o'clock.

D. Rod drifts forward. (the illustration shows no wrist movement in the drift.)

He says " In the casting stroke the hand moves from front to back in a nearly straight line with a slight upward lift, stopping at 1 o'clock. The forward stroke also requires the hand to move in a nearly straight line with a slight overhand motion, stopping at 11 o'clock. "  He suggests doing this a number of times, starting from the horizontal, as if lifting a line from the water. "It is a slow starting accelerating movement, carried out basically in a straight line, as opposed to the fast starting circular motion of the hammer stroke."

At this point he introduces tip action in these words.

"From this explanation the necessity for coming to a sudden, hard stop at 1 o'clock and 11 o'clock should be apparent. Failure to stop will prevent a proper loop from forming. On the backcast this will cause the line to roll downward. On the foreward cast it would cause a very large loop and the line would spill in a heap on the water."

Jim Green then asks that the rod be fully assembled for more practice. He notes that now  you will be able to feel the effect of the hard stop when " The thumb is pushed suddenly in the opposite direction when the rod reaches 1 o'clock, stopping the rod abruptly. In the fowa rd cast the stop at 11 o'clock is made by checking   the rod abruptly against the heel of the hand."

He also emphasizes the necessity of stopping long enough for the line to roll out "nearly to its end." and suggests turning the head from time to time to watch the backcast.

The remainder of the 20 page chapter consists of doing this with the line, leader and hookless fly. Jim Green constantly returns to the principle that the stroke must begin with hand movment and only later involve the wrist. He suggests a slight haul in picking the line up from the grass or water and indroduces shooting line. Repetition and review are the cornerstones of his approach as when he says, 18 pages into yhis twenty page chapter:

"Remember, when you are handling that longer, heavier lenagth of line, not to forget the basic fundamentals: Move your hand during the casting stroke and be sure to give that sudden, hard stop at 1 o'clock and 11 o'clock to flex the tip over the butt. It is that sudden flip that is so important in casting for distance."

Chapter 4 on the roll cast instructs the student to bring the rod up so the line is hanging a little behind and then to make the casting stroke forward.

"With the rod stopped and the line hanging motionless, the wrist is opened and the casting stoke is begun. The forward motion begins slowly , then is made with increasing speed and the wrist is closed gradually just as in a normal casting stroke. When the hand has been moved throught a castingstroke of about two feet, the rod is stopped hard with the familiar flip of its tip, again just as in a conventional cast.

This sudden flip forces the tip of the rod over the resistance of the rod butt and rolls the line forward so that it straightens out nicely on the water in front of the caster. Pulling extra line from the reel will enable the angler to shoot for extra distance. "

Chapter 5 is a humorous description of casting faults by a journalist and chapters 6 - 8 are about tackle and fishing.

There is an appendix devoted to the single and double haul. He cautions that the haul must be taken up only after the basics are well grooved. He instructs a very late haul in both directions with the haul being two feet or more. He also notes: "On the back cast, allow the rod to drift back almost parallel to the water. The line will stay up high if you have stopped the rod at the 1 o'clock position.

Jimmy Green is fully familiar with the double haul, having been the 1946 national champion in the trout fly distance, a single handed shooting head event where the double haul is essential. The thrust of his entire treatise is to work with an 11- 1 o'clock power stroke with a tip flip at each end followed by a drift to lengthen the room available  for the next stroke. He also emphasizes that the  power stroke   always begins with gradually increasing linear hand movement followed by wrist movement and the tip flip.

This booklet is not intended to be an expansive treatment of casting but it is obvious that the ll-1 o'clock beginner's power stroke is lengthened for greater distance. The sequence of hand movement to load the rod and hand and wrist movement followed by a tip flip is the core of the cast at any distance.

One of the most helpful snippets of advice in the casting chapter deals with the beginner caster's fear of falling - fear that the line will fall to the ground. This quote puts it in a nutshell.

" Your first reaction will be to start the forward cast immediately, before that line falls down. You will have to resist that natural reaction and hold your backcast until a loop forms and rolls out behind you. Turn your head and watch this happening, delaying the forward stroke until the backcast has rolled out almost to its end. Then begin the forward stroke, moving the rod smoothly and closing your wrist as you do so. Stop it hard at 11 o'clock and give that final, added little flip. And remember to keep your hand moving through the casting stroke."

FEDERATION OF FLY FISHERS

FLY CASTING MANUAL

UNDATED

The FFF manual includes a guide to forming and conducting club fly casting courses and the fly casting instruction part is reviewed here.

"The grip should be firm and comfortable with your fingers wrapped around the cork of the fly rod as if it were a handle on a suitcase. The thumb can be positioned on top to act as a brake, or alongside. The main thing is , it should be comfortable.

Roll cast: The roll cast is performed entirely out in front of the caster with the fly line forming a low rolling loop with no back cast. The technique is simple: Raise your rod from the horizontal position (where it is when you finish your cast) to the vertical position. The forearm is raised and the wrist closed, or slightly cocked in the rear position. Slowly move your arm forward and lean forward, finishing with a fast out and downward motion stopping in the 9:00 o'clock position. Remember, start slowly and finish fast with an abrupt stop at 9:00 o'clock.

The pickup:Begin with your arm extended and the rod tip fairly low near the water surface. Strip in the loose line so the line on the water is reasonably straight and not in loose coils. Now, holding the line firmly, raise the rod slowly to about the 10:00 or 11:00 o'clock position. Pull the line slightly with the left (if you are right handed) and move your rod quickly from the 11:00 o'clock to 1:00 o'clock position, stopping hard. You can now open your wrist very slightly to allow the line to roll up and behind you. Remember, this is done in one smooth continuous motion and should allow the line to smoothly and cleanly lift from the water surface with a minimum of disturbance.

The lay down: (or presenting the fly after the back cast of pickup is made and line has formed a high narrow loop.) Pause..Remember, it will take a few seconds for the line to unroll to its full distance and you should avoid starting forward until it has. The forward stroke is made almost the same as our backward stroke. Start slowly, gaining momentum or speed, stop quickly at 10:00 o'clock to form the forward loop and then relax the arm slightly to allow the fly to drift or settle softly. The forward stop is made between 10:00 and 11:00 o'clock; by relaxing the arm and dropping it slightly the fly will be presented softly.

False Casting: When you false cast you merely continue your forward and rearward strokes without the final pause and relaxed drop of your forearm. Remember to allow the line to reach a full uncurled position before starting the opposite stroking motion. In other words, keep the fly, leader and line in the air while shortening or lengthening the line or drying the fly before laying the fly down.

Shooting line; Extending or shooting line is a very necesssary requirement in all fly casting. It is easy to do with a little practice. On your forward stroke, while firmly holding  the line - some of which has been previously stripped from the reel - release the line from the hand grip after the rod has reached the 11:00 position and while there is still load on the rod. The forward momentum of the line going forward will pull out the stripped loose line you have. After a little practice and adjusting your timing you will be able to easily shoot 10 to 20 feet of line.

Single haul: The single haul is used to help lift line from the water or to gain additional load on the rod to increase line speed. this helps our backward cast and enables us to straighten our back cast much easier. It is best done just after the line has left the water or the arm is in the 11:00 o'clock position. With a short sharp pull of the hand holding the line as the rod continues its backward motion we are able to obtain the desired results.

Double haul: We save this for last due to its being the most fun or most trouble, whichever applies. The double haul is used to obtain the maximum loading on the rod and to also increase line speed to obtain distance. You generally cannot deliver a fly with delicacy or finesse, however, if you need maximum distance, this is for you. Starting with the single haul, the left hand immediately comes up and drifts back with the right hand (casting right handed) so the two hands are together (much like you had hold of an axe over your right shoulder). The two hands come forward together and when the right had is forward, just prior to the stop to form your loop, the left hand exerts a long pull down across your chest to gain maximum load , is then released and the line shot forward under load."

Thousands of people have learned to cast in classes offered by FFF clubs using the above material.

FLY  CASTING TECHNIQUES

JOAN SALVATO WULFF

1987

This is a 247 page encyclopedia of casting knowledge with numerous illustrative line drawings and few large photos. The author begins with a short autobiographical sketch which includes the stages of a fly caster.

"The beginner is happy just to have his line and leader land on the water without tangling. The second stage is to cast great distances. Finally, a fly fisher wants to execute each cast, short or long, with grace and precision."

Mrs. Wulff offers a little perspective when she notes that a thirty foot cast with a nine foot rod and nine foot leader requires throwing twelve feet of line. She inserts a table of  cast lengths:

Short                    thirty feet

Medium                thirty to fifty feet

Long                     fifty to eighty feet

Very long              over eighty feet.

She begins with a recommendation of the thumb on top grip. She discusses the the other grips and the reason why she favors the thumb on top. (it puts the strongest muscles in the hand in the correct position to move the rod forward) All the grips are critiqued, including the "free wrist" grip that we have learned from the John Alden Knight books.

This is a good time to advise that this book is an advanced text on casting . Mrs. Wulff is entranced with the dancelike nature of casting a fly line and explains in great detail, with numerous line drawings, everything that one could wish to know about fly casting. A beginner can use this book to learn casting but must realize that it is not a one time read. The nuances of hand position, arm movement and rod travel are explained and pictured completely but the beginner must learn to pick out the beginner steps and then return for the more advanced stuff after getting enough casting in to appreciate what she is talking about.

For instance, Mrs. Wulff firmly advocates rod drift as a part of the basic cast but the beginner must stay away from rod drift until the basic stroke is jelled. To use drift before the stroke is firmly established is to wreck the stroke by lengthening it out in the guise of  drifting the rod. The author suggests just that.

Mrs. Wulff teaches first warming up exercises - using the rod with ten feet of line to make patterns in the air - circles, ovals, figure eights without tangling the line. This is to get the student used to feeling the weight of the line on the rod tip. She then introduces the student to casting through the static roll cast in conventional format but she does the student the courtesy of  including a hand thrust in the roll cast from the begining. . She has a list of corrections for various shortcomings in the cast and prominently mentions the need to "...be sure to drive forward with your thumb during the "power snap" and continue to push until the leader and fly have landed."

She admonishes the student to "Lead with your elbow and end with your hand." in the roll cast.

She then dicusses the geometry of the hand, arm and shoulder in casting with detailed drawings of every phase of the pickup and lay down strokes. She emphasizes the use of body motion as a means  to "...further lengthen your stroke if needed."  This can be a useful tool on long casts and can rest the arm by letting the body do more of the rod movement. She emphasizes the upward and backward movement of the rod in the back cast and her illustrations show a pronounced short stroke technique with the rod nearly verticall at the end of the power stroke and before the drift.

Following the roll cast is an extended discussion of arm - rod - body motions and the mechanics of casting with a fly rod. She does not want to use clock face nomenclature because the parts of the stroke come at different points on the clock depending on the length of line being used. Mrs. Wulff  says: "I have anyalyzed the casting stroke as having two parts within the overall accelleration to a stop. The first part ofthestroke must ovaercome thestatic friction of thewater's surface and the inertia of the line (or, in false casting, thechangeof direction against aire risistance) to start the rod and line moving as a unit along the desired path. It begins the loading of the rod, the bvending from the tip downward, by the weight of the line; so I call this the "loading move".  It is done with a firm grip and little force to begin the accelleration.

       the second part of the stroke continues and maximizes the loading action, as the rod and line are accelerated with force to a sudden stop, completing it. As a result of this powerful ending, the rod tip then springs to the  opposite side, unloading the rod and forming a new loop. I call the second part of the stroke the "power snap' because it encompasses the one instant of real force in the cast and because therod, through the actionof the foremarm andhand, snapse from one position to another..

    While the new loop is unrolling you have the option of keeping your casting arm exactly where it ended the stroke or following through. Follow-through helps tosmooth the shock of the power snap and gives you a feeling of staying connected to the fly line's weight as it unrolls. On the backcast follow-through is called "drift' and the time and space it provides will have and additional use for you, to reposition the arm and rod, when you must change planes between back and forward casts. The follow - through onthe forward cast extends the distance slightly and softens the landing of line and leader for delicate presentations. "

The illustrations show that the wrist is relatively unmoving during the loading move  with rod motion resulting from shoulder and elbow movement. The wrist   then produces angular motion of the rod during the "power snap" The power snap includes what other authors call the power stroke and the tip snap. Some authors divide the casting stroke into four parts - load, power stroke, tip snap or some other word for tip action, and drift.

Mrs. Wulff remarks that she cast for ten years without drift, using body motion to extend the casting stroke. It was only when she began to try for distance that she learned drift, which gives you a "farther back starting position" for the nexts stroke. The same advantage comes from drift on the forward false cast - it allows a longer loading move for the next back cast.

The author spends a number of pages on the timing of the back cast. She offers timeing exercises casting horizontally in front, from left to right,  and urges the caster to feel the weight of the line on the rod and start the next stroke just before the line is completely straightened out behind or in front.

She suggests that body motion can be used in place of drift, or in addition to drift in long cast situations.

Chapter three, Refinements to the Cast, covers conventional advice on controlling loop size and  correcting tailing loops. She includes a section on making the fly hover - almost motionless in the air at the end of the cast. This is useful in target casting games and in making the fly land first on shorter casts. She also describes an accuracy exercise she calls "picking leaves" by hitting individual leaves on a bush with short tightly looped casts.

Chapter Four covers use of the line hand  including shooting line and the single and double haul. She asks the student to have the haul coincide with the power snap - start hauling after the loading move has loaded the rod. She advocates a long haul and photos of her in other publications show that when going for extreme distance her line hand is exactly 180 degrees from the rod - extending behind her in a straight line.

Chapter Five, Long Casts, is 20 pages of concentrated details for maximizing distance. She introduces body movement as a way to lengthen the stroke, closed and open stance considerations, shooting line into the final back cast and its companion, slide loading the rod on the final fore cast, marking the line to help achieve optimum loading of the rod, holding coils of line, long cast trajectory and finally, a description of the sequence of events in making the optimum long cast. Included in this chapter is shooting head technique as well.  

Chapter Six deals with curves - not the curve casts currently fashionable as presentations. She discusses curving the path of the rod tip to produce fore and back casts in different planes. From this she leads into the oval cast or Belgian cast as it is called. This is described as going back with a slight curve to the path of the rod tip to take the cast away from the body and produce an oval path of the line and fly with the forecast coming in more overhead.  She recommends this for short rod casting, heavy flies, short clearances from bushes and any situation where the caster wants to keep the line particularly clear of  any chance for wind knots.

In the thirty pages of Chapter Seven, called "Fishing Adaptations"  Mrs. Wulff describes numerous applications of the casting stroke for off shoulder, curve presentations by several methods, various ways to change direction with and without false casts, pickups and catching the leader as well as methods of covering the water, casting under bushes, slack line and aerial mend casts, how todeal with wind and numerous other ways to use the casting stroke she has detailed in the beginning of the book.

The rest of the book deals  with such things as tackle, knots, fly rods and casting for Atlantic Salmon. She describes spey casting techniques and the flats boat cast - which she calls the Salt Water Quick Cast, wherein the caster stands on the bow of the boat with fly in hand and thirty feet of line out and then casts to a tarpon or some other monster with two casting strokes, shooting perhaps another thirty feet of line into the shot. She also tells you how to cast a fly line without a rod, a technique made famous by her late husband. The book winds up with a collection of practice routines, including the use of a yarn rod and casting around various obstacles to be found at home.  

This work is truly useful as a permanent tool for anyone who learns to love the feel and style of casting a fly line. The descriptions are dense and detailed and require a thorough knowledge of what she has taught in the beginning to understand and execute what she teaches later on. There are aspects of casting which are not taught in this book but this is the most comprehensive work that I have found.

FLY CASTING HANDBOOK

PETER MACKENZIE-PHILPS

1991 (PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN)

Peter, as I shall call him due to the length of his last name, starts his 159 page treatise with two paramount rules:

1. Without a good backcast, you cannot get a good forward cast.

2. The line will go where the tip of the rod goes, and the tip of the rod goes where your thumb goes.

He starts right out with the thumb on top grip and favors the rod side foot forward except when the caster wants to watch the backcast which is facilitated by having the rod hand side foot back. He disapproves of eliptical casting - the back cast out from the shoulder a little more than the forecast - on the ground that it costs distance and requires more effort. Peter feels that eliptical casting is the cause of the "dog nobbler duck" a maneuver designed to keep the dog nobbler (a popular British cousin of the wooly worm) out of your ear or head.

He divides the pick up and lay down cast into five parts:

1. The lift.

2. the flick.

3. The pause.

4. The push.

5. The drift down.

The lift is what it sounds like, followed by the flick, which he describes as like flicking water off a paint brush or mud off the rod tip. I interpret his remarks as describing tip snap and he confirms that belief with these words:

"One of the commonest casting faults is not making the tip of the rod flick. Instead a great sweep of the rod is made, hardly bending the spring at all, and the result is always a weak backcast which, because of its lack of line speed, usually drops low behind."  "So that little flick should be the most powerful part of the whole casting sequence."

"How strong should that little flick be? Just enough to make the line flow out behind the rod tip and stop. There should be no shock waves in the line caused by a vibrating rod tip. Obviously, the more line you have extended, or the heavier that line is (higher AFTM number), the more effort it takes to make it all roll out high behind the rod tip, but it is a common fault to put too much effort into the flick and to leave the tip of the rod vibrating like a tuning fork, sending waves along the fly line as it does so."

The pause is self explanatory but Peter gets into it when talking about when to start the forecast. He disparages people who want a tug on the line at the end of the back cast but  wants the line to have rolled out straight with no wiggles or waves and at least as high as the tip ring of the rod.

Peter calls the fore cast the Push because he teaches pushing the thumb out to full arm stretch. "The push, therefore, is a long firm movement, starting with the right thumb beside the right ear and ending with the thumb out as far in front as one can comfortably reach, and aimed along a line of sight slightly above the horizontal."

He expressly vetos the idea of  a flick on the forecast. However, the photo of  Peter ending the push shows the rod bent in a typical  flick (tip snap) configuration.

The last part is the "drift down" which is what it sounds like. The rod tip is lowered to the water in unison with the fall of the fly so that the falling line will not drag the first landing fly back toward the fisher.

Peter gives conventional advice to cast over the off shoulder if the wind is blowing the line into your body and recommends a high back cast with a driven down presentation into  a head wind.

He devotes a chapter to shooting head casting and begins with instructions for making  your own shooting head from part of a double taper sinking line. He suggests casting the double taper enough to determine the amount of line out which leaves the rod not soggy feeling and not feeling as though more line could be aerialized. When this feeling has been achieved cut the line a foot beyond the tip top and voila a shooting head which matches your rod and casting style. He recommends a high back cast with the line hand following the line up to the vicinity of the ear. The forecast commences when the head is straightened out behind with the haul beginning   contemporaneous with the commencement of the forecast. The rod hand was back by the ear also and the rod hand thrusts forward with the commencement of the forecast. Peter describes the difference between "normal" casting and double hauling thus:

"To change from 'normal' casting to double hauling, one lengthens the stride of the rod arm, and of the rod itself, and puts a littlem more effort into both the backwards flick and the forward push. The lengthening of the stride involves starting the flick earlier, stopping the flick still around 12:30, but then drifting backwards with the rod to perhaps 2 o'clock, so that the forward push can go all the way from 2 o'clock right out to full arm-stretch in front. So both the backcast and the forward cast have the power built into them over a longer stroke - just like lengthening the stride while running. ... it requires very little extra effort. ... The commonest mistake  for the beginner is to try too hard with that right arm and the symptom will be the appearance of wind knots in the leader. ...

It is the coordination of the work done by the left hand which causes most problems to the beginner. It is easy enough to start with the hands close together in front of the body, right hand holding the rod, left hand holding the line, and, as the rod starts the flick backwards, the left hand pulls the line down through the butt ring. Then the end of the backcast is reached , and the right hand has stopped around the right ear. The left hand must now be taken up to the right ear, so that both hands are again together, ready for the right hand to push forward, and the left hand to haul again."

At this point in his book Peter Mackenzie-Philps demonstrates once again the beguiling candor which permeates his book. He describes in some detail the difficulties he encountered in teaching the double haul because the students could not be induced to scoot their line hand up to the rod hand in time to commence the next stroke with the two hands together. He confesses that "Some years ago I watched a video made by an American instructor, Mel Krieger. With a lovely infectious grin Mel showed the easy way of teaching the double-haul, and I have used his method ever since. Mel says' You learn a new word. It is one word, not two. The word is downup.As the rod moves you look at your left hand and say downup. On the forward cast you say downup again. It is so blindingly simple, easy to explain, easy to follow , that it is a prime example of 'Why didn't I think of that?' By following this method of talking to the left hand, and perhaps accentuating second syllable  so that it sounds like 'downup', the left hand gets the message and tracks back to the ear before the start of the forward haul. Eureka , as the man said. Using this method I have cut by about 50 percent the time it takes to teach the double-haul, from perhaps 15 minutes to less than 10, always assuming the student can cast a reasonable line without any hauling. Thank you Mel. "

( Your humble book reviewer learned the double haul from a copy of Mel Krieger's ancient magazine article which foisted downup on the world and likewise uses it in teaching.)

Peter goes on to emphasize the need for smooth hauling and describes ways to use it for small additions of line speed where needed, not just for prodigious long shots. Peter hauls three feet on big casts and suggests that the double haul will lengthen your cast by 20%. He remarks that it helps to watch the back cast when you wish to from a stance with the casting side foot back. He advocates turning the shoulders so that the forward shoulder leads to the target in order to allow observation of the back cast on occasion. When the timing is established the caster can then face the target square. He cautions against the "next time" syndrome of giving a mighty heave. This just breaks up the rhythm. He wants the caster to simply release the line when things seem to be going well on the false casting. Not many casts. "If you get it right at the back the first time you need only that one backcast, and can let the cast fly out."

Chapter nine is entitled  "The Overhead Cast - The Ultimate in Distance" and features a series of photos showing the extreme body and arm movements used in tournament distance casting with tournament type stiff rods. The next chapter is devoted to the correctionof common faults. Chapters 11 -17 are conventional coverages of slack line casting, reachmends, the steeple cast, the side (horizontal) cast, curve casts (the horizontal overpowered variety), roll casting and changing direction.

In Chapter 18 Peter shows that the doublehanded rod can be used to do pretty much the same things as a single handed rod with similar techniques, save for the haul, and then, in 19 and 20 he teaches the double and single spey. Chapter 21 floats the idea of using a fixed spool reel for monofilament running line when fishing a shooting head with a two handed rod.  He goes on to finish out his book with a chapter on how to fish the fly, on the theory of casting, fly lines and his philosophy of fishing and casting.

Peter Mackenzie-Philps is as much philosopher as casting instructor. He is certified by the standard British instructor organization,  the Association of Professional Game Angling Instructors, and  his book is largely text, rather than driblets of text surrounded by vast pictures because he discusses many things about casting and fishing along with descriptions of the production of casting strokes.   The book is included in this series to allow the reader to search for national differences in casting.

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