Hi. First off, I’m new here. I did a quick scan of the site to see if this issue was addressed anywhere, either in the articles or the forum…so, I apologize if this is basic stuff. Anyway, I am getting back into fly fishing after a long hiatus. I am getting frustrated because I sometimes spend half my time on the water undoing the tangles in my leader instead of fishing. I will make ten casts with a brand-new leader, bring it back in and there will be three or four neat knots tied into it. My casting is slowly returning to presentable, but I still have this problem.
As a side note, if anybody here is an Austin, TX native and hasn’t fished the San Gabriel river below the dam in San Gabriel Park in Georgetown, if you don’t mind targeting small sunfish, I had a lot of success over the Labor Day weekend with #12 black/red winged ant patterns right after dawn.
Riceowlguy;
Welcome aboard! The friendliest place in town.
I think (JC don’t hit me if I’m wrong) it’s not letting the back cast straighten out and beginning the Fore Cast to fast or with too much power or not stopping at the right place. When I do this , which is often, the whole thing sort of lands on my head!!
But, you were catching fish so what else matters?
We now have electronic devices to analize (?) our casting! What next an auto casting machine (JC is about to kill me!!) Did you have fun? Did you catch a few? That is all that counts!!
Tell us the story behind your handle??!!
I feel more like I do now than I did when I got here!
Jack is right, one reason may be that you are starting your forward cast too soon. Another may be that you are pushing your hand straight ahead, even slightly, at the end of the casting stroke which causes tailing loops. The rod tip must have a slight convex curve at the end of the stroke. on shorter casts you can correct this by pushing down the thumb at the end of the stroke.
Thanks for the info…also to eponymous, because Googling for “Wind Knots” not only found me info about the problem, but also the newsletter of the Texas Fly Fishers.
The story behind the handle is: I went to Rice University (the Owls) here in Houston.
I grew up in upstate New York, and actually had the experience of fishing the Beaverkill when I was a kid, but never catching anything. Now it’s mostly panfish and bass for me, but I am planning on hitting the Guadalupe in January, to try find the trout.
When putting a new leader on do you staighten it out or do you just take out of the package and put it on. If you staighten it out first you won’t have the coil affect and are less likely to have knots.
You are probably doing a few things that somehow combine to tie “wind” knots.
You are bringing your rod back too far. You should try and stop your rod at around 1:00, I hope you know what I mean by this.
You are not waiting long enough for your backcast to straighten out before you begin your forward cast. Don’t be afraid to look behind you and see if that line is getting straight before you bring it forward.
You aren’t keeping the butt of your rod on a plane. Imagine that there is a table which you must keep the butt of your rod on while casting. Slide the butt of your rod back and forth on that imaginary table and watch it work the way it’s supposed to. Whenever your rod deviates from that table you are losing energy and making your line do funny things that could result in knots.
Those knots weaken your leader or tippet by a significant percentage, so you don’t want them there when you get a good fish on the line. Hope this helps.
I live in Austin and have taken a trip to the Guadalupe (just two weeks ago in fact). You can see the trout holding at the bottom of holes right now. Most are around 15-18" (I think the stocked ones get caught pretty quickly or smarten up and grow rapidly). They were holding at the bottom of some pretty swift water and the water temp was around 70, so I didn’t spend much time trying to catch them.
I plan to go back later this month as it begins to cool. Water temp on the Guadalupe is starting to get into the 60’s at night, so it’ll be nice soon.
On the bright side you can still fish for bluegill, carp, and Guadalupe Bass and the wading is excellent!
'Owl,
At the risk of repeating all the good info given to you, I’ll add this.
I’m working on improving my own casting skills too and find that on the application of power to your stroke, the “delivery” if you will, …that gentle but firm push forward and a smart snap to the stop…if you force this too much, you’ll “tail” the end of the leader. this will get you wind knots, bigtime.
To “tail” the leader I mean the leader end slips BELOW the (hopefully) now parallel line. You can see it on the delivery, dip below the main line. It also happens on the back cast too.
Practice and seek help from a fly shop to get you going in the right direction if one’s available. Cuts down on the time/learning curve a lot!
Casting…it’s a huge part of what the joy of our sport is all about. HTH.
I’d like to know something because I’ve yet to see it done. Many people who are knowledgeable about casting say that ‘wind knots’ are caused by this or that. If they know how to cast, and know what faults in a casting stoke cause these knots, how come they cannot put a wind knot into a leader if they want to illustrate that fact?
You wrote,
“I will make ten casts with a brand-new leader, bring it back in and there will be three or four neat knots tied into it.”
My initial response when I read that was, ‘Leaders from the package are in coils. I hope he straightened it out before casting.’ If not, perhaps that’s what caused those knots?
Most good casting instructors can tie wind knots in their leaders at will. I know I can. In fact, gimme three tries and I can tie a “wind knot” in the fly line itself.
Rice… These knots in your leader are caused from tailing loops in your cast. A tailing loop is when the top and bottom legs of the loop cross each other.
Tailing loops are caused by moving the rod tip through a convex path (opposite of this “^”). To correct, study the path of your rod tip on both backcast and forecast. Chances are very good that you are either (as has been said) not allowing the line to straighten (fore or back) and thus introducing slack, or, applying power too soon to line which has straightened.
There are several good casting instructors in the Austin area. Were I you, I’d seek one out and learn some of the basics.
I just moved from Houston. I spent 6 years there The Guad can be real disappointment at times. I used to travel to Arkansas to get my fix, but even then it was hard to really enjoy fishing for hatchery fish exclusively. Then I discovered Saltwater Flyfishing. Texas has some world class saltwater flyfishing. Even though I make frequent trips to the Sierras now and catch native and wild trout regularly surounded by some of the finest scenery and wildlife, I do miss fishing the flats for reds and specs. Be sure to give it a try. You will be hooked.
All these are good suggestions. I would also strongly advise formal casting instruction or at least expert individualized observation. Surely, (don’t call me Shirley) there is a flyshop in the Austin area and someone who could observe your technique and help. You could hire a guide - some are very skilled casting instructors. These knots do come from tailing loops but personally I have trouble with trying to understand written instructions when trying to straighten out my bad habits. I can’t see my mistakes let alone remedy them.
Good luck from a former and still occasional knot tier.
Guys, thanks for all the advice. There is a small pond in a park near my office where I sometimes fish after work, and I hit that on Wednesday and worked on my casting technique and had far fewer wind knots (and fewer casting problems in general). I still have problems with presentation, accuracy etc. but at least now I’m spending most of my time fishing instead of untangling things.
And I did catch some fish…just small sunfish, but what the heck.