The fundamental kernel of fly fishing lies in the angler’s ability to cast and manipulate line, leader and tippet, to send not just a fly to the target, but to also control what that fly is attached to, both in the cast and throughout the drift. This is what separates...
Here’s my biggest takeaway from being a full time guide: Casting is hard, but it’s an essential skill. And many anglers don’t work on it enough. Some seem happy to get the fly near a target, giving very little thought to where and how the tippet and leader will land....
Part of what distinguishes fly fishing from other styles of fishing is retrieving line by hand. We don’t crank a reel to pick up line the way we do with a a gear rod. Instead, we use our line hand to strip in slack or give the fly motion. But then we need to get the...
Jeff is a friend from what seems like another life. I’m now so firmly entrenched with this Troutbitten business, that it’s easy to lose touch with many of the good people I knew from the nearly two decades I spent as a full-time, gigging musician. So when Jeff...
It’s fly fishing. So it starts with fly casting. Here’s how to improve accuracy and control over the system with just a few key adjustments.
All fly fishing styles require the same casting fundamentals and the ability to control lengths of line in the air. And we must build casting loops with speed for the line to go anywhere . . .
We mend to prevent tension on the dry fly or the indicator. All flies could drift drag free in the current if not for tension from the attached leader. So it’s our job to eliminate or at least limit that tension on the tippet and to the fly.
This Hop Mend is an arch. It’s a steep and quick half-oval. It’s a fast motion up, over and down with the fly rod. It’s powerful and swift, but not overdone . . .
Fly casting differs from spin casing in a few key ways, and here’s one one of them: You need both a forehand and a backhand cast to achieve effective presentations. Trying to fit a forehand cast on the backhand side is a bad habit that causes problems and limits what is possible on the water. While there’s plenty of room for personal style in fly fishing, this is not one of those places.
As you can see in the video, there are multiple reasons for developing both the forehand and backhand casting stroke. Being equally comfortable with both sides opens the doors to every angle necessary on the river . . .
There are no flying fish in Montana, not in Pennsylvania, and not anywhere. Norman Maclean’s line in A River Runs Through It sums this up:
“One reason Paul caught more fish than anyone else was that he had his flies in the water more than anyone else. “Brother,” he would say, “there are no flying fish in Montana. Out here, you can’t catch fish with your flies in the air.”
And yet, anglers everywhere love the false cast. I daresay most fly fishers spend more time setting up their fly for the next drift than actually drifting it — exactly Paul’s point.
The most effective anglers are the most efficient. So they spend double, triple or a lot more time with their fly FISHING the water instead of casting in the air above it. And inevitably, these anglers catch more trout — a lot more trout . . .
Only a small percentage of anglers have the necessary accuracy to tackle the tough situations. And big trout seem to know where to hide from average anglers.
In fact, accuracy is the most important skill an angler can learn. The simple ability to throw a fly in exactly the same place, over and over, with subtle, nuanced differences in the tippet each time, is the most valuable skill for any fisherman . . .
In short, turnover gives us freedom to choose what happens with the line that’s tethered to the fly. How does the tippet and leader land? With contact or with slack? And where does it land? In the seam and partnered with the fly, or in an adjacent current? By having mastery of turnover, we dictate the positioning of not just the fly, but the leader itself. And nothing could be more important . . .