How to Cast a Garden Hose
Or How To Do Rope Tricks With Your Fly Line
As seen in California Fly Fisher,
February 2005
© 2005 Jim Zech
A fly line is exactly like a garden hose. Actually, that’s not really true; you cannot water your tomatoes with a fly line. So let me rephrase: a fly line is exactly unlike a garden hose, except when it comes to how they both move. Let me try again: a fly line is exactly like a length of rope. Well, that’s not exactly true either; you cannot tow your broke-down Ford Fairlane with a fly line, not very far anyway. The point here is that both fly lines and garden hoses and lengths of rope move in the same way. I’m sure that the phrase “who cares” has already formed in your mind and is well on the way to being expelled from your lips right about now. The pre-emptive answer to that astute ejaculation is that you do–you care if you want to be an efficient fly caster.
If there is a garden hose laying across your lawn and you reach down and pick up one end, raise it over your head, and then quickly bring that end back down toward the ground as if you were trying to crack a whip, odds are that you are then going to have a bruise in the shape of a sprinkler in the middle of your forehead. This is because the motion that you executed caused the far end of the hose to come zipping across the lawn directly at you, probably very quickly. A fly line will do exactly the same thing if subjected to the same forces, except that instead of a sprinkler imprint in your forehead you will have a fly embedded as deeply as a co-opted war correspondent.
I can feel that “who cares” raising its ugly head again. And my answer is again the same: you care if you want to be an efficient fly caster.
A good friend of mine who is a rancher and a rodeo star told me that because of his long experience with manipulating lengths of rope–roping cattle, horses, fenceposts, women, and the like–that when he started fly fishing the casting part came to him easily. He said that casting a fly line is just like throwing a lasso.
Fly lines, garden hoses, and lariats all move in the same way. When you are casting it can sometimes be helpful to think of your fly line, to think of the way that it moves, as if it were a rope or a hose. That’s why you should care. Caring makes you a better caster.
Almost all of us have been taught to cast a fly line by learning to follow some fairly rigid rules: 10 o’clock to 2 o’clock, abrupt stop at both ends, don’t flex your wrist, put your weight on the big toe of your left foot, stick your thumb on top of the handle, don’t stick your thumb on top of the handle, etc. Well, now it’s time to pull your thumb out and think about casting in a different way. Now it’s time to stop thinking about forming perfect loops in the air as you repeatedly wag your rod back and forth, back and forth, back and…now it’s time to think about how you can move a fly line in order to get your fly to the spot it needs to go in order to have the best chance of actually catching a fish, and to do it with as little motion as possible.
Note: I can take very little credit for the development of the casting techniques that I will attempt to communicate to you in a few paragraphs. These techniques have been adopted from two-handed rod casting techniques. There has been a considerable upsurge in the popularity of using two-handed or “spey” rods on the west coast. I got started using them about 10 years ago, am still not very good at it, but I have picked up a few ideas by trying to become better. The first truth is that by attempting to learn to spey cast, and by watching my friends attempt to learn to spey cast, and by watching the instructional videos and reading the articles about spey casting, is that the wrong way to do it is any way that doesn’t get the job done. Conversely, the right way to do it is any way that does. That has now become my one any only axiom concerning casting: the right way gets the job done. Now you may not be interested in using two-handed rods at all. But the point of this article is that anyone who has used two-handers will automatically transfer the skills needed to cast the long rods back to casting single-handed rods. I just want to pass some of these casting adaptations on to fly fishers who may or may never use a two handed rod. I have chosen these three casts because they are the ones that I find myself using most often. There are several other casts that work also.
Now back to the garden hose comparison. You’ve probably been told not to “crack the whip” with your fly rod by someone who really knows casting. And they were probably right to tell you that in that particular situation. What you were doing at that time was undoubtedly very wrong and you should have been admonished severely for it. I’m now telling you to crack that whip, but to do it in the right way.
When you took that garden hose and did what you did with it, notice that the end with the sprinkler on it traveled in the direction in which the hose had lain on the lawn. Normally when fishing your want your garden hose, excuse me, your fly line to change its direction. Your fly line started out somewhere directly in front of you out in the river after your cast, but now it has drifted with the current and is stretched out below you downstream, eagerly awaiting to be cast again. You now want to move your fly line and its attendant fly back to being directly in front of you or to where you think the fish are likely to be. I am going to describe three ways to move your line from the “hanging uselessly downstream in the current next to the bank” position, to the “being out in front of you in the there are fish in this part of the river” position.
Casting Technique #1, The Snap Cast
I have no idea why this cast is referred to as the “Snap”; for all I know it may have been invented by Snappy Snapperson, casting expert. Of the three casts described here it is most akin to the garden hose example from above. It is also the one that I find most useful.
This cast is most commonly used by right handed casters in the situation that we call “river left”, which is when you are on the bank facing the river and it is flowing in front of you from the right to the left. (Lefties will generally use this cast on a “river right”.)
In this situation, the “river left” situation, your line is hanging below you, your rod is in your right hand and your right arm is crossed in front of your torso as you face your target, and the tip of the rod is pointed downstream. Your first objective in attempting to cast your fly back out into the river in front of you will be to bring your fly from downstream of your body to a position upstream of your body, optimally somewhere within a rod’s length from you. To do this you are going to take the tip of your rod and transcribe the shape of a giant “U” tipped on its side with the rounded end pointing upstream. The first “leg” of the “U”, the first move you make with your rod, will be the one on top; the one higher in the air. The second “leg” will be the one closer to the water. I have found that it is best to apply only a little power when then rod tip traces the first leg, and then to increase the power quickly yet smoothly as the rod tip traces the rounded part of the “U” and also the bottom “leg&rdquo–just like cracking the whip. The size of your “U” and the power you apply to make it will vary depending on how much line you are trying to move, and also how much garbage you have attached to your leader–indicators, split shot, multiple flies, tuna balls, etc.
The second move to this cast begins at the moment your fly hits the water upstream of you. When this occurs, if you have made your “U” properly, your rod tip should again be pointed downstream and your rod hand extended across your torso. At the moment that your fly hits the water you are going to bring the tip of your rod across in front of your body, around behind you, and then you are going to poke the tip up into the air and quickly stop the motion, pointing to about the 1 o’clock position. Now you are going to pause for a moment to allow the belly of the fly line that is following the tip of your fly rod to billow out behind you. You need to execute this move with an amount of power that moves your line, but leaves your fly anchored in the water where it came to rest after move #1. Now that your fly line has billowed out behind you forming the shape of a “D” you are going to make a forward cast in exactly the same way that you would if you were overhead casting, which means that you need to stop your rod tip abruptly to form a loop. If you do this properly your fly line and attendant fly will zip right out, precisely and properly to its target. Got it? Alright; sure; no problem.
Casting Technique #2: The Double ____ Cast
When using a two handed rod this cast is called a “double spey cast.”
I have no idea what you would call it for a single-handed rod, so call it
anything. This cast is usually used in a “river right” situation for right-handed
casters, where the current is flowing from the left to the right as you face the
river. As with the snap cast you will want your fly to land somewhere within a
rod’s length of you on your right side after you make the first move. To start
this cast you will be standing facing the opposite bank of the river with your
fly line hanging downstream in the current directly below you. Your rod arm
will be extended downstream and the tip of your rod tip pointed at your fly–the
one on the end of your line, not the one on your pants, just to be clear. To get your fly to move upstream to bring it to within a rod length of your body will require some trial and error, mainly to judge the proper application of power. The move to which you will apply this power is this: sweep the tip of the rod upstream in front of your body with exactly the amount of power necessary for your fly to stop within a rod’s length downstream of you, (ya, right!) Here is a tip that might help: start this move slowly and get your fly to start to skitter upstream towards you. As your fly is skittering, and as your rod tip is moving upstream give your rod tip a little power “pop”, and then stop it. On second thought, that’s not much of a tip. Just practice a bit, it’s not that hard. Once your fly has stopped a rod’s length downstream of your rod tip should be pointing somewhere upstream. You don’t want it to stay there. Now’s the time to sweep your rod tip majestically back downstream in front of you in a big, round arc around your body, swinging around behind you, once again bringing the tip of the rod back and up with a poke up into the air, stopping it at the 1 or 2 o’clock position. Now pause to let the belly of the line billow out behind you in a nice, big “D” shape. Make your forward cast, loading your rod with the weight of the line that makes up the “D”. Cake.
Casting Technique #3: The Rolling Roll Cast
This cast is pretty bitchin’, and it looks bitchin’ too. It’s a very graceful and flowing cast, and it is also very effective. Normally you would use this cast in a “river right” situation, although it also works for a “river left”, so long as you don’t mind crossing your casting arm across your body and casting over your left shoulder, assuming you’re right handed.
Once again, fly’s hanging downstream, blah, blah, blah. For this cast the first move is to point your rod tip back behind you toward the bank. From there bring the tip of the rod over your head in a great, big, large, exaggerated round, circular motion, bringing the tip down in front of you, sweeping it horizontally low along the water back again toward the bank. Then, as they like to say on shampoo bottles to get you to use twice as much shampoo, “repeat the process”. This time, however, instead of continuing the motion of your rod as you make your big, exaggerated loop, stop your rod tip abruptly as if you were making a forward cast, which is exactly what you will be doing, so make sure to aim at your target.
With all of these casts, as with a garden hose, once you get your fly line moving it is easy to keep it moving, once you stop, your fly should go where you stopped the motion.
These casts take a little bit of practice. It’s worth the time to do so. Once you have mastered them they will make you a more efficient fly angler. They will help you keep your fly in the water where the fish are and not in the air where the pollution from the unnecessarily massive SUV that you used to get to the river is.