FLY CASTING VS FLY FISHING - Neil Travis - August 17, 2009

[pszy22]

I spend most of my time fishing a large, fairly fast very popular river in Michigan. Probably the most common cause I see when people aren't catching fish is that they are fishing way too long a line. There is no way you can control your fly presentation with a mile of line out (at least not on my home river).

My wife is a very casual fisher, she likes to be on the river, and fishing is a good excuse to be out. When you watch her fish, you can tell her casting skills are minimal, but she does catch fish. It interesting to watch people, you can see folks who can easily cast twice as far as my wife, yet they still may be fishless while in the same time period, my wife has caught 10 or 15 fish.

To be honest, I had the same problem when I first started fishing my home river 30 years ago, I was an experienced fly fisher at the time, but I caught very few fish. I often fished with my brother or other friends, who were at least catching a few fish while I often caught none. It wasn't until I realized I needed to concentrate on fishing, rather than long distance casting, did I start catching fish.

[Jed]

For me fly fishing is about relaxing and enjoying the moment. Its not about how well I cast or how many fish I catch. There are days I cast well, fell like I'm at the top of my game and cath nothing. I consider that good day. There are days I catch many fish and stop because its repetitive and becomes boring. Other days I find that one fish and consider the hunt a sucessful day of fun.

I've fished with many people here and caught zero or one fish and still carry those wonderful memories fresh in my mind. Dave Micus, Josko, Flats, Chris (and others) hopefully share those memories and don't consider the count important.

I also remember the day I fished the Cold river. Caught nothing, saw nothing and had such a great time concentrating on placing my 20 and 30 foot casts that I went back and repeated the experience.

jed

[flyguy66]

I think it goes without saying that the more proficient an angler one is at ALL of the skill sets associated with fly fishing, the more enjoyment potential lies within one's reach. What some seem to lose sight of is that casting is but ONE of those skill sets. And I think that is what Neil's article was really about. Of course, only Neil could tell us that for certain.

For example, I don't think it is a hard rule that the more line one has beyond the rod tip the less effective of a presentation one has. While I think this is a generally true principle for the dry fly or nymph fisherman, it is not true for the streamer, deep stillwater, or popping bug fisherman. Fishing to a target suspended 15' deep is going to require you to put some line in the water to get any presentation at all.

Having a strong double-haul that you can cast accurately and effortlessly to 60-75 feet in good conditions will give you the ability to cast effectively to 40 feet in a wind that would stop many fly anglers of lesser casting skill.

But mending skills, knot skills, fish playing skills, stalking and wading skills, boating skills, and a whole bunch of other stuff can be just as important to how much frustration one can avoid and fun one can have. And even with quite meager skills, one can have a lifetime of fun in fly fishing.

[Silver Creek]

Being a good caster never hinders your fishing. One cannot say the same about being a poor caster. For me, that is the bottom line.