easy tips to teach a friend how to cast?

I have a buddy that really wants to learn to fly fish, but I am struggling to teach him how to cast. The problem is that I am completely self taught, so I really have trouble explaining what I am doing and what he needs to do, how to do it, and what he is doing wrong. I don't normally want to teach friends how to fish, but he's really helping me with my golf game, so it's sort of a trade off.

He's getting horrendous wind knots and his flies are unraveling after a handful of casts. I've never even seen flies get totally messed up that bad from a cast. Does anyone know good tips or exercises for him to get the feel of loading the rod properly and getting timing right? I really want to put this guy onto fish, but I can't if we cannot get him casting better. I'm even having trouble explaining how to roll cast.

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Originally Posted by angler99

his flies are unraveling after a handful of casts



good tips or exercises for him to get the feel of loading the rod properly and getting timing right?



he's really helping me with my golf game, so it's sort of a trade off.

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1. Are you hearing that SNAP when he comes forward? Tell him it costs $2 every time he makes that noise. He's not pausing long enough on the back cast. Have him watch the line behind him and don't come forward until the loop has straightened out behind him.

2. False casting with your eyes closed. Works every time.

3. Beer also works.


Post a vid of his flailings and we can help more.

Thanks. There is definitely the dreaded snap every once and a while. I'll recommend the eyes closed thing. I've never heard of that one before but it makes sense. There is normally copious amounts of beer, but maybe we need even more. I'll try to get a video sometime if he continues to suck.

Not a specific tip but a suggestion...teaching him how to cast should be done like how a casting clinic is taught. Beginners, for obvious reasons, are all about catching fish. Fuck the knots, fuck the casting, fuck the match the hatch, "I want to catch fish now!".

Sensi say must learn how to love fishing before loving to catch fish. Take him out to a pond with a picnic table under a shady tree. Start with a sip of whisky and a beer. Work on knots for a while. Make him test every knots he ties. Next start practicing casting with no fly on the line, use an indicator or piece of yarn so he can see it. Practice with weight to simulate nymphing. Next find somewhere with current and having him work on roll casting. Honestly, rivers are lined with bushes. The text-book fly cast is only so useful. Also work on his drift and mending. When learning, a passable roll cast and a good understanding of dead drifting and presentation will catch way more fish than attempting a good double haul.

Sensi says he has now learned how to enjoy fishing. Time to move on to a little catching. Sensi say he who rats nested in bushes only catch buzz. Stress a keep it simple stupid approach to a session. Build him a little deadly dozen fly box (adjust accordingly) and give him a set number of casts with each fly. This makes the beginner think about each drift and making it count because they hate tying knots. Teach them how to work a drift bottom to top in to out. Until they can go a whole session without getting tangled or randomly losing flies, no dry dropper or double nymphs. Single flies only.

Be realistic about it with him. I learned from guide buddies who fly fished their whole lives. My first few months, catching one a week was a victory. Skunk sessions were the norm. Keep him motivated by giving him flies that you are hooking up on, calling him up to fishy spots and trying to put him on the trout and letting him fight fish that you have hooked.

Flyfishing ain't easy. There are no shortcuts and one must have patience.

That's solid advice. I do tell him "that's why they call it fishing, and not catching". He has been working on his blood and cinch knots at home. I roll cast pretty much 95% of the time, so I agree with you about not getting too wrapped up in the overhead cast. It just gets the fly down faster, keeps the fly in the water more, and is easier for me to cover a lot of water.

I have not really gotten into presentation yet because of his inability to get the fly in the right spot of the water. I have been tying on double nymph rigs for him, but in retrospect that is probably not smart. Unfortunately the heat and clear days have prevented using a single dry fly, so he's been trying to chunk heavy double nymph rigs with an indicator.

After a few failed attempts on the water I decided we needed to go to a park to practice casting. There was a pond so I did show him how to roll cast. Hopefully he can use that to get his fly in the strike zone.

Shit, roll cast, like Foggster said, is all I usually use on a river. You wanna really have to learn how to cast, come down here. Long accurate casts are needed. Prolly why I pick up the spinner so often.

I had a teacher tell me to hum the Blue Danube and time my cast to it. Helps with the timing.

One thing that helped me a ton was learning how to use the water to load the line. No need for a killer cast if the water can do it for you. Have him practice by getting 40 yards of line out by roll casting, then have him lift the line rapidly, wait a couple seconds, and try to land the cast near where it started. Once he gets the feel, show him how to time the backcast load to really shoot line. Once you figure out that 90% of that silly bullshit we do is just to shoot line, it becomes really easy-ish.

When I teach casting, I don't really teach it as casting so much at first but as "line management". Right off, the very first concept taught is that without line management (ie. hauling, hand position and control of slack line) the rod won't load. This leads to the concept of the rod as a lever/spring that must be loaded to store and release energy and thereby move the line around. Then, once the student has those concepts down, THEN you can start working on casting form and timing. Otherwise, you can end up with a pupil trying to cast without actually understanding the what, why and how of the cast and then you just get shit casting and a confused guy.

99% of noob casters are afraid to let the line fully extend behind them on the backcast, so the rod will not load going forward and the cast falls apart. Why? Cuz they can't see what's going on behind them and they are afraid of hiting the ground. So, I'd just make them cast side to side for a few minutes so they could observe how the proper rod angle is key, see the line fully extending in both directions and see that the line is not hitting the ground. By watching both ends of their cast, they could get the concepts rod angle and timing down really quick. Make them watch their rod tip load and unload through the cast and hopefully your pupil will understand what's going on up there. Then it's simple to have them change the cast axis to forward/backward. And because you started with line management as skill #1, the process of teaching hauling, roll casting and mending is a natural progression with casting, not something you try and add on later.

best tip I have found for new people, slow down and hold the back cast way longer then you think you need to...also, have hime tilt his head back and watch his back cast.

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Originally Posted by neckdeep

When I teach casting, I don't really teach it as casting so much at first but as "line management". Right off, the very first concept taught is that without line management (ie. hauling, hand position and control of slack line) the rod won't load. This leads to the concept of the rod as a lever/spring that must be loaded to store and release energy and thereby move the line around. Then, once the student has those concepts down, THEN you can start working on casting form and timing. Otherwise, you can end up with a pupil trying to cast without actually understanding the what, why and how of the cast and then you just get shit casting and a confused guy.

99% of noob casters are afraid to let the line fully extend behind them on the backcast, so the rod will not load going forward and the cast falls apart. Why? Cuz they can't see what's going on behind them and they are afraid of hiting the ground. So, I'd just make them cast side to side for a few minutes so they could observe how the proper rod angle is key, see the line fully extending in both directions and see that the line is not hitting the ground. By watching both ends of their cast, they could get the concepts rod angle and timing down really quick. Make them watch their rod tip load and unload through the cast and hopefully your pupil will understand what's going on up there. Then it's simple to have them change the cast axis to forward/backward. And because you started with line management as skill #1, the process of teaching hauling, roll casting and mending is a natural progression with casting, not something you try and add on later.

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Good stuff here.

Also, he's probably breaking his wrist and bringing the rod too far down in his backcast. Have him keep a straight wrist, stop the rod higher (like 2 o'clock), and pause longer (2 sec is standard, IIRC). The pause is long enough that you can turn and watch the line (as gretch said above).

Line management is key, and roll-casting and side-casting are a much more useful techniques than straight casting. And then there's the whole idea of getting the fly to float naturally, but ya gotta be able to get it out there to start.

I always remind noobies "you're casting the line NOT the fly" seems to help get the whole idea across....

Well we went out to the Yampa, which gets fished a lot. i don't ever have trouble catching fish there, but I know that they are more picky than other rivers due to the fishing pressure. My buddy only roll casted and flipped the line upstream using the water/current to load the rod. He managed to get some good drifts and landed his first fish, albeit it was probably one of the smallest rainbows I've ever seen. I think it may have been a stocked fish. He kept the rod tip high and got him to the net. It was pretty sweet. Thanks for all the advice. I'll continue to try to describe all the tips given above.

The Yampa is under voluntary closure right now. So....

Well fuck me. I honestly did not know and obviously would not have gone if I had known. I drove from an hour and a half away and I didn't stop at any fly shops along the way. I have to say I am pretty surprised it has a voluntary closure. There were no signs at either Sarvis or the upper lot and there were the normal crap ton amount of people fishing. In fact, I saw at least 2 guides with clients. Why wouldn't the DOW post signs if there was a closure? I don't get it.

Regarding the Yampa, you may have been out of the voluntary closure area and regardless probably didn't cause too much trouble for a tiny fish. I'd hope that guides are honoring the closure, but you never know.

"Extremely low flows and rising water temperatures have prompted Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials to implement a voluntary closure to all fishing in the Steamboat Springs section of the Yampa River. The closure will be in effect from the upstream boundary of the Chuck Lewis State Wildlife Area downstream through the city limits of Steamboat Springs, and anglers are asked to avoid this area."


Regarding casting -- I feel like the two most important things are (1) holding the back cast long enough, as has been mentioned already, and (2) visualizing the arm motion as being the alternation between two different positions ("10 o'clock / 1 o'clock" or whatever), rather than a windshield wiper type action. Point being that the motion from one position to the other needs to be crisp, and then the position held for a period of time.

Whenever I take out beginners, I get them started with a Tenkara rod. That way, they can just worry about casting, and don't have to think about the reel, line control, etc. Once they've got some Tenkara time, then I introduce them to a traditional rod and reel.

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Originally Posted by Ignatius

Regarding the Yampa

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One should aslo take into account that I often don't know what I'm talking about.

I think that the DOW should post some signs if that was the case. The water was definitely low, but it was still pretty cold. Cold enough to almost numb my feet when I went to retrieve some flies in an overhanging bush. Perhaps all the recent rain has cooled things off a bit.

I can't say for certain that I saw two guides. But yeah, they were guides. Classic blue shirt, fancy long handled clear basket net, and lots of instruction and changing of flies of their clients/buddies/whatever.

Yeah...all the above;-) It's usually a slow, lonnnnnng, wristy motion(which usually ends up with either much energy at every point along the wristy-circle...distributing the line in a huge loop...or the forward cast falling into the path of the preceding backcast).....and the rod tip is usually slowing down at the end, when it should've been a constant accelleration without forcing.. All in all....most always too much line out(stay ~8' to 15' for awhile), and too much motion....the short-line first hour teaches conservation of motion...with a firm, but comfortable wrist.
Yes. as always...watching/showing good technique with a few words is much easier for all than a lecture...

$.01

keep taking him fishing. Practice makes perfect.

He's got the bug. I believe yesterday he landed his 7th or 8th fish. He's to the point now where he goes out by himself and might catch one if conditions are right. Yesterday he told me he used a hopper which was the first time he got a fish to eat up top, which is always highly entertaining for a newbie. The last time I went out with him he was nymphing pretty well with good drifts that were down in the slot. I thought to myself "man if he keeps fishing like that he will start catching".

Buddy of mine recently described his fly fishing technique,"like a bullwhip contest". Wonder if it is the same person. Does he ride bikes semi-professionally?

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e7...hoto-114-2.jpg

looks stupid... your buddy might feel stupid... but it WILL make him a much better caster in the long run once he gets a feel for what casting is suppose to feel like without breaking the wrist.
Also, don't have him try practicing with tons of line, it just makes the timing that much harder to get down. Once he gets the feel for loading the rod with 15-20' of line he will be able to use the same concepts with more and more line. The few guide buddies of mine that I fish with tell me most rookies biggest mistake is trying to work with way more line than they need and like others have said; line control, mending and presentation catch way more fish than casting does.

Seriously helped me out a bunch. Thanks for asking the question angler99!!!

"You can't catch a fish unless the fly is in the water."
-old timer out here describing how he could give a shit about some high-flying fancy casting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ-AXvVbKkE

Learn from Lefty... they say he's good or something.

When I take brand new clients out, the very first thing I tell them is for the first week you're out fly fishing to lock your wrist entirely. Absolutely no motion from the wrist will help keep the rod where it's supposed to be (10 oclock to 2 oclock). Once they're ready to incorporate some wrist action, the analogy I give them is that it's like trying to fling an apple that's stuck on the end of a stick. It's all about the loading. If that doesn't click I tell them it's like trying to fling paint off of a paint brush.

Unlike others on here I would say my casting is typically 70/30 false casting over roll casting. I prefer traditional casting (especially with dries) because it disturbs the water far less and for me is far more accurate. On a 30' cast I can put a dry in a pie tin 8 or 9 out of 10 casts with a traditional cast, rather than probably 3 or 4 roll casting just due to the line flopping on either side.

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Originally Posted by yellowstoner

I prefer traditional casting (especially with dries) because it disturbs the water far less and for me is far more accurate. On a 30' cast I can put a dry in a pie tin 8 or 9 out of 10 casts with a traditional cast, rather than probably 3 or 4 roll casting just due to the line flopping on either side.

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Roll casting/single hand spey isn't about accuracy. It's simply a means to get the line out when an obstruction behind you prevents an overhead cast. I think we all prefer tradtional casting though, I must admit, I have a quiver of oddball roll/spey casts I developed that allow me to effectively fish tight pocket water in canyons that would drive most flyfishers to tears and every time I use one of those improvised cast and in-air mends to make a really tough presentation....it's just way more satisfying than a traditional cast because its like I solved a tough puzzle. Also, roll casting is way more effective for deep nymphing in swift current because it is easy to make an arcing "chuck" that lands the fly, weight and indicator in the same spot (in a vertical plane) and it gets down as fast as possible. A horizontally extended leader dropped by an overhead cast will drag and the fly sinks much slower causing you to either miss the big bottom hugging fish or compensate by putting on too much weight. I used to out fish one friend 3 to 1 simply because he wouldn't roll cast his nymphs. He learned. Nothing educates like having someone using the same fly rip fish after fish out of water you just worked!

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Originally Posted by neckdeep

Roll casting/single hand spey isn't about accuracy. It's simply a means to get the line out when an obstruction behind you prevents an overhead cast. I think we all prefer tradtional casting though, I must admit, I have a quiver of oddball roll/spey casts I developed that allow me to effectively fish tight pocket water in canyons that would drive most flyfishers to tears and every time I use one of those improvised cast and in-air mends to make a really tough presentation....it's just way more satisfying than a traditional cast because its like I solved a tough puzzle. Also, roll casting is way more effective for deep nymphing in swift current because it is easy to make an arcing "chuck" that lands the fly, weight and indicator in the same spot (in a vertical plane) and it gets down as fast as possible. A horizontally extended leader dropped by an overhead cast will drag and the fly sinks much slower causing you to either miss the big bottom hugging fish or compensate by putting on too much weight. I used to out fish one friend 3 to 1 simply because he wouldn't roll cast his nymphs. He learned. Nothing educates like having someone using the same fly rip fish after fish out of water you just worked!

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Don't think you need to sell me on the virtues of roll casting. Unless I'm fishing in a slot canyon or on pebble creek normally I'm wading and making traditional casts just fine. I don't think that roll casting nymphs is generally "better" since I almost always use a double-nymph setup and the current tends to tangle nymphs if you roll cast them (just my experience here). Instead of roll casting those nymphs, try stopping your last front cast at noon instead of 10 o'clock. This will stack the tippet on top of the fly line and drop the nymphs JUST like you're describing with your roll cast. All with less water disturbance AND increased accuracy. This was something I learned from one of our old-timer fly fishing guides and boy does it work like a charm. Will people around you think you don't know how to cast since the line isn't reaching out like it 'should'? Yes. Will you catch more fish? Yup.

I think a WHOLE lot of flyfishing is just hours spent on the river. My cast is far more open in the 15-30' range than it 'should' be, it's also off canter at about a 45 degree angle to my body. I'm the first to admit it's not the prettiest cast in the world, but it catches fish just the same. I find that I can more accurately pick up and lay down with a single back/front cast when I open up my loop a bit on the back cast initially (think spey cast).