Submitted by
Capt. Lawrence Piper
January 17, 2015 6:50 a.m.
We’ve covered the first three principles to a good fly cast – Eliminate Slack line, have the proper amount of Smooth Acceleration and make sure the rod tip follows a Straight Line Path. But how long of a casting stroke do you use?
Principle Number 4: Length of Casting Stroke. When a fly caster is making a short cast there will be a short amount of line out of the rod tip. Imagine standing in a small trout stream and your cast only has to be 15’ away. Your stroke will be nice and short, back and forth, almost like throwing a dart. On the other hand, if you’re standing in our North Florida spartina grass and have spotted a tailing Redfish 55’ feet away, you’ll have more line out and will need to open that stroke up to get that fly line moving.
A good way to remember this is “short line, short stroke and long line, long stroke”. A more technical explanation for this is that with a short amount of line out, the rod bends or loads less and the stroke length will need to be shorter.
With a longer amount of line out, the line weighs more and there is a greater bend or load in the rod. The casting stroke has to be longer with the amount of line out in order to keep the rod tip traveling in a straight line path. You’ll now see that with the different lengths of line out there will be a need to time the Pause between the forward cast and back cast, which is the final principle to a good fly cast!
Capt. Lawrence Piper is an Amelia Island back country fishing guide and a FFF Certified Casting Instructor. Capt. Piper can be reached at www.TheAnglersMark.com 904-557-1027 [email protected]
Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Wilkes. www.elizabethwilkesphotography.com