While you do not need to be a 100 foot+ , great caster to successfully saltwater fly fish on Cape Cod, you do need, however to be proficient enough to be able to deal with and cast well in wind ....lots and lots of wind.
In most fresh water fly fishing, you don't have to be that good a caster to catch fish .... 20-30 foot casts will suffice ,but in saltwater, the ability to cast competently (AT LEAST 50-60ft in the wind) can be critical . And while you generally don't have to be a pro staff level fly caster to catch fish, there are many times where being a better caster would make the difference between a so-so fishing trip and an epic fishing trip. On Cape Cod, distance and being able to punch a fly through the wind is much more important than a high degree of accuracy and light presentation like you need for dry fly fishing trout on a trophy section of river.
Before we get started with the nuts and bolts of the cast, let's first go over what a technically solid cast should look and feel like. On Cape Cod, fly fishing in saltwater usually is done with a 9-10 foot/ 9 - 10 weight fly rod . These rods are specifically designed to cast a (relatively) heavy line( compared to mono or braid in spin fishing) and a relatively weightless fly (actually, some of the best salt water flies are very slightly weighted). To cast the fly, timing and momentum are your friend, raw muscular power is not. Most casters get to where they can cast in the dark and go simply by feel without visually monitoring each component of the cast. This is possible because it is all about the feel of loading the rod and making the rod do most of the work like it was designed to do. For your standard 50 to 60 foot cast, there should be very little muscular effort required to make a good cast.
In a beginners casting class, we break the cast into it's two distinct components-the backcast and the forward cast. While the forward cast is the one that delivers the fly where you want it to go, the backcast is perhaps even more important to get right. On the backcast, you should only be trying to feel the rod taking on a load (the weight of the fly line making the rod begin to bend). This loading sensation or heaviness is telling you that you can now use the energy stored in the rod to begin making the forward cast. As you make both casts, you will want to create a tight loop that will cut through the air. However, you don't want it to be too tight or you risk catching your fly line on the rod with the back or forward casts. You also don't want the loop to be too large or all the rod energy transfer to the fly line will be wasted. Least importantly, at least in most Cape Cod Fly Fishing, you want your cast to fall gently on the water with the fly, leader, and line all hitting the water at nearly the same time (most of the time...) and not in a big pile.
Most every casting instructor uses the same basic principles and techniques to teach the fly cast. There are a thousand, good quality fly casting "how to" videos out there and you will likely see alot of subtly different approaches. The one I describe here, I have used for 100's of successful group and private lessons over the years.
Slack is YOUR MORTAL ENEMY! -
The first step to a good fly cast is that you remove the slack , in your non rod hand, before you go to make your backcast. If you try to backcast when there is a lot of slack in the line, you have to move all that slack line first before the line starts moving back to load the rod. This is a waste of effort that makes casting much more work than it needs to be. Removing that slack line makes your backcast more efficient and crisp which translates into improvement in the rest of your cast. If you don't deal with the slack, you will have issues all through your cast until you gain control of your fly line .This is alot of needless extra work and can make fly casting exhausting if you are in constant slack recovery mode.
It's about timing, not brawn. Casting is not about muscle power like surfcasting, in fact, to make a 50 foot cast - my rod moves maybe 4-6 inches through the casting stroke. If you apply too much muscle and ground force power in the cast easily leads to a cascading set of problems. I have found over the years that it is easier to teach someone to fly cast with no or little fishing experience. It's the guys that have surf fished for 30-40 years that have a more difficult time at outset. There is alot of casting muscle memory that has to be undone before they can learn to fly cast. Not to worry though...it only takes a few minutes of attention to rewire the brain to
"Accelerate quickly to an abrupt stop."
I repeat this dozens of times during our casting lessons. Beginners generally have a hard time with this conceptually, at first, but it is actually quite easy. You can cut hours off the learning curve if you just make peace with the fact that keeping the rod in constant motion during the cast just makes everything go haywire. One of the reasons beginners are inclined to keep the rod in constant motion because they think they don't have time before the line loads the rod and it will fall to the ground if they don't keep it in constant motion.
Both the forward and the back casts are about a quick acceleration to a distinct stop - this is what gives the rod a load and thus the line momentum. Failing to make a distinct, abrupt stop and waiting for the rod to fully load is probably the casting error I talk about more than any other at Goose Hummock Shop fly casting lessons. There are any number of ways people talk about this error, but I say it is most akin to just picking up a bow and arrow, quickly drawing it back a half inch and hoping it will go 50 yds...you wouldn't do that, would you? When fly casting you are going to make a long full draw so that the rod would be fully loaded like a bow pulled to a full draw.
Let the rod do what it was designed to do
Fly rods tend to be long - 9 feet is probably the most common length of fly rods used for saltwater in the Northeast. This is because a longer rod is a better tool for transfering energy to the fly line and the rod. One of the most common beginner mistakes I see is using much more rod movement and effort than is required. After a little bit of instruction, most beginning fly casters will begin to sense when a cast feels right and when it doesn't. If you are having trouble sensing the load in your arm, pay closer attention to the pressure against the thumb bracing the fly rod... the pressure you feel there will help you better sense when the rod is fully loaded .
You don't need 20 false casts.....
Many people false cast far too much. That being said, the false cast does serve a couple of critical purposes and is a crucial part of the cast.
One purpose of the backcast is to slowly feed out line. The more line you let out during false casting will increase the weight and thus you will feel a greater sense of load. In saltwater, I try to keep backcasting to a minimum-I will rarely make more than three backcasts. The main purpose of the backcast is to load the rod for the forward cast. After watching hundreds of novices begin to learn to cast, I saw that many people become overly concerned with false casting and they tend to try and carry too much line outside the rod tip, for too long. The longer you try and repeatedly false cast too much line, the more likely things are to go haywire.
There is rarely much reason for more than two- three false casts if you are only casting 30 to 50 feet. More backcasting means more opportunities for things to go wrong with the ever present wind in saltwater, besides that, the fish are in the water, not the air.
That line hand stays close to the reel.
There are two things I see inexperienced anglers do improperly with their off-hand. First is they have a tendency to let the non rod hand that is controling the line get too far out away from their body.. This creates slack and remember, slack is your mortal enemy. My line-hand stays fairly close to the reel for the entire duration of the cast.
There is no way around it... fly casting is an acquired skill and you need to practice. We have found that practice on dry land, like a soccer or baseball field is twice as productive as teaching people waist deep in water. You should practice often at first and get to the point where you are not consciously thinking about every technical step but rather, you are doing it by muscle memory and sensation.
Take a class and cut months off the learning process
In writing, this probably all seems more difficult and technical than it actually is. Once you get a rod in your hand, all the components of the cast and sensations described above will quickly become self evident.
We hold a variety of beginner and intermediate level private and group lessons from spring until fall every year. We supply the rods, reels and lines, but you are welcome to bring your own if you already own one. The beginner class requires absolutely no experience. We teach these lessons on dry land, so no other specialized equipment is required.
You can join our first group class of the season on Sunday April 27. here.
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