ADVANCED FLY CASTING - Ladyfisher - April 12, 2010

ADVANCED FLY CASTING

A little story about the word Advanced. Been there, in fact the late Castwell and I taught classes for Delta College in Michigan, a satellite of the University of Michigan. The college suggested we teach two classes to cover the gamut of people who might want to learn to fly fish. So the listings of the classes went out with two sections of Fly Fishing. Beginning and Advanced. The first night of the Beginning class was very disappointing - no one signed up, but not to worry, the advanced class was scheduled for the next night. We were amazed! Fifty-seven people had signed up and shown up for the advanced class.

Triple haul, I have never heard of it until now. Thanks for the lesson. I have to practice that one for sure. I think it would come in handy along the Sonora Pass where the wind can whip down the canyon at times making casting upstream impossible at times.

You hit it right on the head, Deanna, there is just NO substitute for spending time on the water. When I was practicing in MI, I lived on a little lake and would spend my evenings winding down by fishing. I used my 4wt for panfish, and regularly used my 8wt for casting big deer hair poppers for bass. I got to where I could cast out into my backing with a fair amount of ease on a regular basis! I NEVER would have been able to do anything even close to that if I hadn't spent so much time fishing. When I hosted the MO fish-in a few years ago, I had a FFF flycasting instructor, give all of us a lesson, and really learned how much I didn't know about casting. Boy, was that an eye opener, lol. I can also tell you, without-a-doubt, that my casting isn't nearly as good as it was back then because I just don't spend as much time on the water.

Great little article.
TT.

Good stuff. Thank you for the read. I think it's important to get in a practice session or two on windy days when possible.
Then it's no big deal when you run into windy conditions on the water.

I have a question for LF about the triple haul.

I am trying to visualize it in my head when to make the last haul.

I think what I understand is that the last haul is made as the line it shooting out on the final forward cast to really make an abrupt stop to force the loop to unfurl and straighten out the loop and leader into a strong head wind??

Sorry if this seems kind of vague but I am trying to figure out when it is made and what its purpose is.

Your understanding is correct. The problem some (me too) have with this is the usual time you make that haul you have the tip of the rod pointed up not out in front of you. It does take some concentration.
Hugs,
LF

Thanks

Make the last haul with the rod pointed up before you drop it. :)

I'll have to work on that.

No sorry I have confused you even more! Duh. You don't lift the rod tip, that's the problem. As your forward cast is rolling out with your rod pointed at your target, now is when you do the 3rd haul.
Hugs,
LF

Okay,

That sounds much easier. Trying to fire off the third haul while the rod tip was still high sounded like a good recipe for a collapsed loop.

Thanks again LF for the info. :D

Nick

I was out early this morning trying to slip a woolly bugger along a line of ice at my favorite lake at 9000 ft trying this and that. After an hour or so of frustration, the casts started to work again instead of just piling up in front of me. If I approached things from one angle, a standard overhead cast was fine, but tried the sidearm to come at the opening from a different direction and I was amazed at how it kept me out of the fly eating pine trees behind me. I was actually getting the fly where I wanted it better with the side arm than I was with a "normal" cast. While there was not much true wind, I did notice how it kept things low and gave me better control of the line rather than letting the wind take it wherever it wanted to.

So I come back to the cabin for a break and a warm up and very pleased with myself for "discovering" this side arm thing and THEN read this article.

I'll go back in a little while after the fish get over me beating the 400 sq ft of fishable water into a froth that first hour. :)