Can someone please tell me what causes a tailing (trailing?) loop?
…that one that makes my fly hook my line a few feet behind the leader…
I’ve got a couple guesses -
…but I’m really not sure.
Any explanations/tips ya’ll can give me would be very much appreciated.
I’ll bet you are dipping your casting hand on your forward cast.
That’s the most common thing I’ve seen and I’ve taught LOTS of folks to fly fish.
Ken
Watch your wrist. You also may be punching the rod on your forward cast which will cause a tailing loop.
Get Joan Wulffs Dynamics of Fly Casting video. It will revolutionize your casting and take care of the tailing loop.
Thanks guys. . . now that you say it, that sounds familiar from the casting class I attended.
Castwell, I believe by “dipping” they mean I am dropping the tip of the rod (bringing it down) before the line has come fully forward and turned the leader/tippet/fly over.
[This message has been edited by MikeZRed (edited 07 April 2006).]
JC, when you cast, your hand should stay on a level plane.
Pretend you have a board horizontal at your side. Make a grip like you are holding a flyrod and do a back cast and a forward cast with your thumb touching the bottom of the board.
That’s how a cast should be and will cure a tailing loop.
I wish mine were all that way, but they are not. Remember, it’s just a teaching tool.
Ken
Mike,
Basically…you need to pull the line up and backwards to a STOP on your back cast to fully load the rod. Without it your for-cast is gonna suffer.
The rod must load. If it doesn’t you’ll force the for-cast and cause the tip to dip below the line …and the leader will follow, tailing. Why? Because you needed to over-power it foward.
This is but one cause. First, make sure your back-cast is loading the rod. You should feel a little tug if it is. This will let you know. This is for a practice only to see if it indeed loads.
But when you do actually make a forwards presentation (cast) you’ll be needing to do it a split second “before” you feel that “tug”.
Don’t get all tied up OR frustrated. It’ll come in time…
This explanation is quite basic.
Jeremy.
CO Flyguy, you mean no more windshield wipers LOL. I learned and teach the same way you just said with the shelf
It works, keeping in mind of throwing a ball. To throw real far, lengthen the movement of your arm or thumb as you said.
she who dies with the most toy’s wins.
There are several causes. Overpowering the forward cast is a very common one.
CO flyguy mentioned dipping your casting hand. If by that he means carving a sort of negative sine wave (down then up) in the air with your rod hand on the forward cast, that would certainly do it.
Bob
What say you JC? Think that sounds right Fer us novices?
Wow, all these crazy answers, I’m even more confused. Well, here’s my answer(not FFF certified). There is only 1 thing that causes a tailing loop. The rod tip drops below the line. What cause this? One thing, and 1 thing only. OVER POWERING THE ROD also know as shocking the rod.
Hey JC,
BSwan should have further explained that it is an illustration af a basic trigonometric function. Others are cosine,secant,tangent and cotangent. A negative sine wave is a wave under a horizontal axis in a graph. The harmonics of a musical note can be illustrated as a sine wave. It’s as simple as that.
And NO, ya can’t surf on one. 
Mark
I’d rather be in Wyoming!
“There is only 1 thing that causes a tailing loop. The rod tip drops below the line. What cause this? One thing, and 1 thing only, OVER POWERING THE ROD”
Actually that isn’t strictly true. I expect MikeZRed is performing TWO faulty actions - both of which have been outlined in this thread. 1) He is dipping his wrist BACKWARD as he begins the forecast (regardless of how high or low his backcast was) which DOES lower the rod tip below the line, but it is not because of overpowering the cast. 2) He is powering the cast TOO SOON and then is decelerating the cast as he Coasts to a stop (with an exaggerated wrist movement at the end).
MikeZRed: When I coach casting I try to get beginners to remember the ‘word’ they should be imitating with the force of their cast is 'wwhuummP, not PPoowww - hopefully that makes some sense. If you dip your rod tip down at the end of the cast as you describe this will actually open the loop and result in a shorter softer cast (that may land in a pile), but it usually doesn’t cause a tailing loop. Try to stick with the firm wrist and straight-line movement suggested by others.
Thank you all very much for your responses.
I tried to keep what everyone was saying in mind last night while I was casting, and I seemed to be doing much better.
Of course, 90% of the time I was fishing it was too dark to see if I had a tailing loop or not, but my fly was going farther than the fly line, so that was a good sign.
Thanks again, fellas.
Another reason that has little to do with casting technique is a poorly constructed leader.
See Rick Z’s quote for 4-7
“The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life”