The most frequent questions we receive in January are, “I just got a rod where do I begin” or “How do I teach my spouse or kids to cast.”

The Casting Connection

January 2024

By Capt. Scott Swartz

Scott Swartz founded the Atlanta Fly Fishing School, which began in 1999. It is the largest such operation in the Southeast and the only Trout Unlimited “Gold Endorsed” school in the United States. His Florida Fly Fishing Schools started in 2008, helping anglers
learn to successfully fly fish in saltwater.

There are many ways to learn fly casting. Typically, they involve drills such as the pick-up-and-lay-down (PULD) to teach casting mechanics. If you find yourself attempting to teach family or friends fly casting, we have a tip. Don’t do it! Especially if it is your spouse.

Send them to a casting instructor and save your relationship. Okay, that was a little dramatic. I’m bias as an instructor, but knowing how to cast and knowing how to teach casting are very different skills. Since you are likely to do this anyway, here is a great way to get started.

The first thing is simply to get a feel for your rod by playing. Each rod speaks a little different language depending on its line weight, its length, and whether it leans toward a faster or slower action. Before starting work on drills spend a few minutes playing instead. This non-structured play time is the fastest way to get to know your rod and how it feels when pulling line through the air. At school we call this the “ribbon dance.”

Begin by stringing up your rod (running the line up through the rod guides). Make sure you have a leader attached to the fly line and perhaps a small piece of yarn or string on the end of the leader to simulate a fly.

Pull the leader plus 15 to 20 feet of line out of the rod tip or roughly about two rod lengths of fly line. Trap the line where it comes off the reel under your finger on the rod’s cork grip. This will keep more line from unrolling off the reel. Try making circles with the line overhead like a helicopter. You will notice the line does whatever the rod tip does. Make small circles, big circles, fat circles, and skinny circles. Try some figure 8s and let your imagination run.

Soon, you will graduate to making long skinny ovals where the line is traveling further in front and behind you than off to the sides. Now that you’re pulling fly line back and forth through the air, we simply need to add a stop to the rod to form a loop. Stopping the rod crisply, at the end of a forward cycle, lets the fly line pass the rod tip forming a loop that will travel out in front of you and fall to the target. Congratulations, you just cast a fly rod! The secret sauce to starting a beginner with this technique is there is no trying to “throw” a fly.

In fly casting we are pulling line through the air, to get it moving, then, stopping the rod to unroll a fly line. Another benefit of the ribbon dance is most beginners will keep the rod tip fairly level overhead verses making big sweeping arcs, from horizon to horizon, attempting to throw the fly.

Fly casting is not hard, it is just different than anything else you throw. Every ball, stick, or rock thrown has follow-through, but when fly casting we must get the line moving and crisply stop the rod to form a loop. It is counter-intuitive to stop your arm when you are throwing something, but trust the rod to throw the line for you. It does this as the rod unloads energy from the bend it has in it from pulling line.

The biggest ah-ha moment in fly casting is when you feel like you barely did anything and the rod did the work of casting for you. You cannot throw a fly, but you can unroll a fly line that will carry your fly to the target. Most beginners try too hard to throw the fly and are amazed at how little effort is actually needed when you let the rod do the work of casting for you. That is what fly rods are designed to do.

Join us this year as we dive into the fun side of fly casting. There is a simple joy and pleasure in a well-executed cast – especially when it catches a fish! This quick, playful, method for beginners is a great way to get started and really works well. As we progress through this year’s Casting Connection you will enjoy diving deeper into aspects of casting, such as accuracy, distance, curve casts, mends, false casting, double hauls, slack line casts, and so much more. The better you are at fly casting the more enjoyment you will have fly fishing.