Follow through is good for your golf swing, not your fly casts.

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.

January 2026

By Capt. Scott Swartz

Q. My leaders don’t turn over straight and sometimes land in a pile.                       What gives?

1. Be sure to check your leader’s diameter and length verses your fly’s size, weight and drag. Ruling out mismatched gear, the most common reason for poor turnover is not stopping the rod at the end of the delivery cast. If this is your issue you are in good company because most fly casters have trouble with the stop.

It is not natural to stop our arm when we are trying to throw something.

A lifetime of throwing has our arm and brain trained for follow-through. We have follow-through throwing in just about every sport. It is counterintuitive to stop our arm when we are throwing.

To more easily turnover a leader, stop the cast while the rod’s tip is still traveling toward the target. Fail to stop at that point, and the tip finishes a circle heading toward the ground. The line and the leader will follow to a pile-up.

Failing to stop leads to big loops. Photo by Jimmy Jacobs.

All fly casters, no matter their experience, struggle with the stop.

Beginner casters “throwing” the fly have this problem. You cannot throw a fly! There is a rod and fly line between your throwing arm and the fly. But you can bend and unbend a rod that is pulling line through the air. If you do that in a straight path, stopping before the tip heads south, things get better.

In intermediate stages of casting, loops get better and leaders straighten out – until they don’t. When the wind is in our face or the cast needs to be longer, instincts kick in. Our brain tells us to just throw it harder.

Experienced casters with beautiful stops on all their false casts often “help” the final cast and end up not stopping on the delivery. That last cast is the one that counts.

At school, we have tools to help anglers learn a proper stop. We utilize cable strung between posts with a rod handle attached. We teach helicopter drills. We use straight lines to match tip path, and we use video because seeing is believing. These drills are all helpful, but the biggest help is getting casting straight between the ears!

As long as we are trying to throw the fly like throwing a ball our casting will suffer.

I must note there is a technique of “throwing” with a “Stop-less Cast”. Undoubtably, I will receive mail if I do not mention this exception. The “170 (degree) fly cast” is a casting technique used in distance casting and competitions where the rod travels through a wide 170- to 180-degree arc. The stop on this cast basically occurs when you run out of arm.

For us mere mortals, casting at fishing distances, we need to stop the rod. The “ah-ha” moment comes when we realize we are pulling line through the air, then unrolling a loop by stopping the rod.

We are unrolling a line and not throwing it.

Unrolling your line and leader in the direction you stop the rod happens every time. Make it count. Just stop it!

Send your casting questions or comments to:

Scott@AtlantaFlyFishingSchool.com.