Fly Fishing Casting Guide for Beginners
Fly Fishing Casting - Overhead casting
The art of fly fishing casting may look extremely difficult to the beginner angler, but with a bit of practice it is not that difficult to become a good fly caster. With fly fishing, you are wasting your time unless you know how to cast properly – even if you have the best fly fishing equipment and the perfect fly collection. It’s important to be able to land a fly fishing fly on an exact location on the water’s surface when fly fishing casting. This guide explains about the fundamental fly fishing casting skills required by the beginner fisherman.
It is recommended that the beginner learn fly fishing casting from a fishing instructor, but there are plenty of books, DVDs, and online guides that teach fly fishing casting. The two main fly fishing casting techniques used today are the overhead cast, and the roll cast, and all other fly fishing casting techniques are variations of these two techniques. The beginner will start with the basic dry fly fishing method where a floating line is used which floats on top of the water. With dry fly fishing, it is easier for beginner anglers to see the line, and to detect a strike on the line. Also, using a bulky fly fishing vest can impede your casting stroke, and beginners are advised to use a smaller fly fishing chest pack or lumbar pack – there are a wide range of Fishpond pack models to choose from for the beginner angler.
When practicing fly fishing casting it is important to ensure you practice in a location with enough clear space, such as a open field. You need to have 45 feet of open space in front and behind you if you are practicing 45 foot casts, and for this distance also ensure that you have 20 feet of space on either side of you. It is recommended that you wear protective goggles/glasses and also a hat to be safe. It’s also recommended that you use a fly with no hook (called a yarn fly) on your fly fishing line. For your fly casting practice sessions, place targets out in front of you, then you must try to hit these targets when fly casting (hula-hoops can be used).
Overhead Cast
This is the most commonly used fly fishing casting technique, and most beginners should start using this technique. This technique has two sequences, the back cast, then the forward cast. With the back cast, you are lifting the fly line off the water in front of you, and up over your head until the fly line is behind you. Before the fly line touches the ground behind you, initiate the forward cast sequence. With the forward cast, you bring the fly line back over your head, and land the fly line on the water with the fly landing on the location you were aiming for.
Roll Cast
The roll cast is used when you have obstructions behind you, such as bushes or trees, that prevent you from doing the back cast using the overhead casting technique. This technique is also useful in strong winds where you don’t want to lift the line too high into the air. In order to perform a roll cast, lift the fly rod up slowly until it reaches the one o’clock position (just past 90 degrees). This will cause the line to slide backwards on top of the water, without the line lifting off the water’s surface. From this position, you do a firm forward cast to complete the roll cast.
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Tags: fly fishing casting, fly fishing techniques, overhead cast, roll cast