Conventional fly-fishing wisdom states that 90 percent of fish are caught within 40 feet of the angler. So why bother learning to make longer casts? Well, assuming that this notion is plausible, then 10 percent of the fish are caught beyond 40 feet. What if those fish beyond 40 feet were the biggest and most challenging? That would be reason enough to master the long cast.
Actually, there are many other situations were making the long cast is obviously necessary, such as when you are in a float tube or boat and trout are rising or stripers are “boiling” 50, 60, or 70 feet away. Perhaps the situation in which most California fly fishers will need the long cast is on lakes in pursuit of trophy trout and striped bass with streamers and bucktails. And there are types of fishing that consistently demand long casts: flats fishing or casting from the beach to fish-holding troughs beyond the breakers. Other times when long casts are important are on big rivers and the open ocean.
Stillwater expert Denny Rickards drives home the advantage of making long casts. Imagine, he says, that you consistently cast 50 feet and your friend casts 40 feet. Since we are enjoying assumptions, Denny says, assume that your 10-foot-longer cast is seen by two more fish than your partner’s 10-foot-shorter cast. If you make 15 casts per hour for eight hours, the longer cast may show your fly to 240 more fish throughout the day. And what if you were to extend your cast by an additional 10, 20, or 30 feet for more? The potential is intriguing, isn’t it? Larry Kurosaki, a two-time world-record holder for largemouth bass on a fly and a professional guide from Castaic, says that his clients who can cast farther tend to catch more bass and stripers. It is as simple as that.
Besides showing your fly to potentially more fish, a long cast allows you to be more stealthy. Imagine you are in a float tube or boat casting a streamer 70 feet to shoreline-cruising trout. That scenario is likely to bring you success. Now imagine casting in the same situation, but only 30 feet from shore, or worse, trolling a streamer over where the fish once were. Success is less likely in the latter scenarios.
What if you fish only small streams? You could make the argument that one doesn’t need to make long casts. Indeed, making a long cast on a small stream is usually not necessary, and it will often cause your fly to drag, due to a multitude of currents tugging at your line. But being able to make a long cast certainly will not set you back. Since casting errors are magnified in a long cast, mastering distance casting will eliminate errors and improve your casting in general. It could even save your fishing trip. For example, after driving a good part of the day to a stream, you encounter windy conditions. What would you do? Turn around and go home? Wait out the wind? Improved techniques gained by mastering the long cast will allow you to fish when the wind chases others off the stream.
There’s also an added benefit on small rivers and creeks to fishers who have distance casting skills: being able to cast a bulky fly, such as a grasshopper pattern, all the way across a stream to the opposite bank. One of the most exciting experiences a small-stream fly fisher can have is to cast a hopper across the river, have it drift for a few moments along the ruffled edge of the current on the far bank, then see it inhaled by a big brown trout.
Even if you are already relatively proficient in making long casts, you can always improve your long-range accuracy. Or you can practice casting with your non-dominant hand or casting backward, which are handy skills to have in windy conditions. And of course, you can always strive to add more distance. Serious golfers go the driving range to improve their long game. Why should it be any different for serious fly fishers to work on their long game?
What Is a Long Cast?
There is no standard answer for what constitutes a long cast. For example, one can usually make a longer cast practicing on a lawn than when fishing in a float tube, and one can usually cast farther with a shooting head than with a full sinking line. So a good definition would be getting the most distance with the equipment you are using in a particular situation.
Steve Rajeff, chief rod designer at G. Loomis, once told me that a competent fly caster should be able to cast an entire fly line, 90 feet. That is setting a high bar for competency, but that’s easy to say for a multi-time world champion fly caster. (In competition, his longest cast was 238 feet.) It is more of a challenge for the rest
of us, but casting an entire floating line is within our reach if we work at it. To put some concrete numbers to long casts, I would say that a 100-foot cast with a shooting head and an 80-foot cast with a full sinking line would also be long casts. There are fly casters who can cast much farther, but these numbers are suggested as benchmarks — goals to reach and surpass. It is important to note that these distances are for casting from a standing position on a lawn in mild conditions. Casting these distances in fishing conditions, such as from a float tube or in the wind, would obviously be much harder.
Equipment
The tools for making long cast are single-handed to two-handed rods in a variety of lengths and weights. But I am limiting this discussion to single-handed rods, which most anglers would use on California waters. A 6-weight to 8-weight 9-foot to 9-1/2-foot fast or medium-fast-action rod should be able to deliver a streamer a long distance. Although one would probably not go wrong with an expensive rod, casting quality does not necessarily demand big expenditures. A few years ago, I bought an inexpensive 7-weight as a backup rod. But after a while, I discovered that the cheap rod was, for me, better than my more expensive primary stick. Bill Heard, a master casting instructor from Whittier, says that if you fish a lot, an expensive rod may be warranted due to most having virtual lifetime guarantees against breakage, and also due to their superior damping characteristics, quality construction, and sensitivity, among other attributes.
I would suggest that at first, anyone interested in improving his or her distance casting use the rod they have. Establish a baseline distance with it and work toward improving your distance with that rod before purchasing a new stick. If and when you decide to buy a different rod or a backup rod (always a good idea), you will be better able to test out the rod at your local fly shop. You will have better casting mechanics to give the new rod a good try, and you could use the same practice reel, line, leader, and fly. (I use an old streamer nipped at the hook bend.) This would give you a true comparison between rods. If you are fortunate to have a friend who is an accomplished fly caster, take him or her with you to evaluate the rod. Or have a casting instructor or fishing guide help make suggestions regarding rod makes and models. You want the rod to fit you.
The fly line you chose can increase the distance of your cast. Generally, you will make longer casts with a shooting head than with a conventional line. Shooting heads are essentially a weight-forward line with a relatively heavy forward portion and narrow running line. They are available from various manufacturers as an integrated head and running line. Or you can make your own. If you fish streamers, for example, you can tie a monofilament or other running line to approximately 25 to 30 feet of tungsten-core line or shooting head. For a 7-weight rod, you would usually use .020-inch-diameter running line and 30 feet of T-8 shooting head. For a 6-weight, .015-inch running line and 25 feet of T-8 would be about right. Of course, these combinations depend a lot on the rod.
One great trick for trout fishing I learned from Larry Kurosaki is to cut the front 25 to 35 feet of a conventional Type III sinking line for the head and use Amnesia monofilament for the running line. This setup will allow you to make 70-to-80-foot casts from a float tube. In my experience, this is about twice as far as a typical cast in that situation. Imagine how many more fish will see your streamer with that type of distance cast.
Mechanics
Making the long cast is not rocket science, but it is physics. As with all fly casting, the idea is to transfer the energy stored in a bent rod to the line efficiently, which, in turn, delivers the fly.
The first order of business is to load the rod, that is, to put a bend in the rod, which is done via the casting motion. It requires more than just waving the rod back and forth, of course. For a long cast, if you cannot feel the load, you are generally just moving your arm back and forth. Loading the rod requires a pause at the end of each stroke to allow the line to unfurl or nearly unfurl. This is paramount, because it removes slack from the line. It is the rod’s opposing movement against the weight of the unfurled or nearly unfurled line that causes the rod to bend. (Force equals mass times acceleration.) But there are a lot of things that need to come together to maximize the load and to transfer the energy efficiently to the line in order to make a long cast. These are timing, form, smoothness, and trajectory. They are essential components of all casts, but are of paramount in distance casting.
One thing that is not as important as one would think for distance casting is power. Too much brute force, in fact, can kill the cast. In this regard, long-distance casting is counterintuitive. After all, if you want to throw out a base runner from the outfield, you throw hard. That you need to add power to make a long cast is a normal and natural assumption, but it is not generally effective for distance casting. Bill Heard says that casting is dynamic — there is an optimum amount of force or speed needed for each cast. Can you achieve distance using a lot of force? Yes, if you can carry a lot of line in the air, but using a lot of force (and therefore speed) requires impeccable timing, which is virtually impossible to do consistently. You do not need to overpower the cast, because good timing and technique in themselves can deliver incredible line speed. In a video, Tim Rajeff, the brother of Steve and a prominent rod designer and distance caster in his own right, has stated that a rod tip can attain speeds of up to 200 miles per hour. Of course, much less line speed is required to make a distance cast. But the rod is capable of generating greater speed than your arm, so slow down and let the rod do the work. The best advice I’ve found regarding this is a quote from Nick Curcione: “slowing the casting stroke will solve a multitude of problems. Instead of relying on power to deliver the fly, the focus should be on developing a smoothly executed speedup-and-stop rod stroke for both the back cast and forward cast. When it is done correctly the rod will do most of the work, not the caster.”
Timing
Timing is important during many parts of the cast. The most obvious is gauging the time it takes for the fly line to unfurl or nearly unfurl. Also, within the casting stroke there is a small window of time during which to begin the acceleration of the rod and to end it. That is the speed-up-and-stop portion, often referred to as the power stroke. Maintaining a constant speed of the rod will result in an anemic cast; acceleration is necessary. Then there is the timing of the haul, that is, the tug of the line to increase the bend in the rod: an important component of a long cast. If not done correctly, it can hurt your cast instead of help it. While always keeping tension on the line, make the haul toward the end of the power stroke. According to Bill Heard, the haul is also a speed-up-and-stop motion. If you cast too fast, you generally compress the time in which to do the above functions, which makes it harder to execute the long cast. Slow down.
Form
Developing a narrow loop is basic to good casting form and especially important in distance casting. As Lefty Kreh says, creating an open loop dissipates energy over a semicircle. A narrow loop directs the energy to the intended target and allows the line to unfurl, rather than collapse. A narrow loop develops when the rod tip is maintained in the same or nearly the same plane. Since it is difficult to observe the fast-moving rod tip, you can visualize keeping your elbow on a shelf, as Lefty Kreh demonstrates in one of his videos. Of course, the imaginary shelf may be visualized as being on an incline when you change trajectory. However, with distance casting, especially with a weighted fly, do not try to make an extremely tight loop. Doing so may cause your fly to hit and possibly damage your rod. Open the loop a little, but keep the top and bottom lines parallel. A corollary to a narrow loop is to track your line in a straight path, both forward and backward. Again, straight-tracking the cast will direct more energy toward the target, resulting in greater distance. To do this, it can be helpful to turn your body to view the unfurling back cast, which will facilitate the 180-degree tracking of the fly line. Good casting form can also help you with timing. When you make a good forward false cast that unfurls with a narrow loop, note the tempo and continue it on the penultimate and final casts.
Smoothness
A hallmark and essential component of a good long-distance cast is smoothness. Avoid the temptation to give the final cast any extra oomph. “Punching” the rod on the final cast without a smooth, but firm stop will shock the rod and impart energy-sapping waves to the fly line. It may seem strange that smoothness is an essential component of the long cast, but it is. Without a quick and smooth stop of the rod, the energy in the bent rod will not be efficiently transferred to the line. An abrupt, jarring stop, however, will cause the rod tip to wobble, thereby creating waves and robbing the cast of distance. Watch for a wobbling tip. The wobble can be minimized by utilizing a relaxed grip and by squeezing the rod handle at the end of the cast, then an instant later relaxing the grip.
Trajectory
Trajectory is very important in distance casting. It is axiomatic that your fly line and fly are always under the influence of gravity, as is everything else. Even if you make a beautiful, highly efficient, narrow-loop cast parallel to the water, the line and fly will hit the surface before a similar cast aimed above the horizon. And chances are that the cast parallel to the water may hit the water before unfurling. So generally aim high, that is, above the horizon. There are exceptions, such as when casting directly into the wind, a condition not conducive to making long casts. In this situation, aim low and parallel to the water, employing a relatively narrow loop. Conversely, when the wind is at your back, aim high on the final cast, and the fly and line will sail.
The above tips for long-distance casting are by no means exhaustive. Better fly casters than I surely would add a litany of other tips to those listed above or take exception to some. Bill Heard, for example, would likely emphasize the importance of maintaining line tension and the removal of slack. But all great casters, I believe, would agree that there are a lot of mov-
ing parts in casting, all of which need to be executed well to maximize distance. There are many good videos and articles on the Internet regarding distance casting that you could check out. Some are better than others. The best video for long-distance casting, in my opinion, is “Fly Casting Tips & Techniques: Distance Fly Casting — Leland Rod Company with George Revel — Mentoring Your Cast,” https://Kgdd6QA9g. Of course, knowing what to do and actually doing it are two different things.
Line Management
In distance casting, one must unreel a lot of line in order to shoot it through the guides. Assuming you false cast with 40 feet of fly line, including the leader, outside the tip top, what do you do with the 40 or 50 or more feet of running line you intend to shoot? If you are ashore or in a boat or on any other relatively flat, uncluttered surface, you can array the running line by distributing it in large loops, starting at three o’clock and working your way counterclockwise to the nine o’clock position, then back to the noon position (for right-handers). This will minimize line tangle. If you use Amnesia running line, be sure to stretch it often to avoid tangling, otherwise you may spend more time unraveling bird’s nests than fishing. If the surface on which you will need to drop your running line has a lot of potential snares, such as rocks or plants, you may want to find another spot or use a stripping basket. Devices such as stripping baskets also can be handy in windy conditions and when beach fishing. Another trick I learned from Larry Kurosaki is when beach fishing, you can let the wave action help with line management. The waves usually will wash in from the right or left. Strip line so that trails away from you with the wash.
Fishing from a float tube presents a particular challenge for distance casting, and in fact, the problem of line management partly limits the distance you can achieve. The stripping aprons on f loat tubes just don’t seem to hold a lot of running line. One trick is to deposit the last bit of retrieved running line in the water, rather than on the apron, and in that way the line in the water will be taken up with the false casting, and the apron will hold the last bit of line, which will shoot fast and far.
Practice
If you want to improve your distance casting and casting skills in general, you need to practice. Of course, you could and should always practice while fishing. In fact, you should continually critique each cast when fishing. The pros do that. But to catch more, bigger, and more challenging fish, you may want to practice in anticipation of your time on the water. Perhaps you can find a quiet corner of a local park or school sports field and spend an hour a couple of times a month working on your long game. It will pay dividends when you do make it to the water.
Several years ago, I read Denny Rickards’s chapter “Casting for Distance, the Required Skill for a Big Trout Specialist” in Fly Fishing Stillwaters for Trophy Trout. Since then, I’ve taken his advice to heart and started practicing the long cast. I have more than doubled my casting distance, although I still consider myself a student of the long cast. Through tutorials on the Internet, I was able to progress, but usually by taking two steps forward and one or two back. I was spurred along by pointers from Larry Kurosaki and more recently through instruction from Bill Heard. So if I could to do it over, I would contact a certified casting instructor or guide at the outset to help me along. In that way I would not have reinforced bad habits, and it would have definitely shortened the learning curve. Slight adjustments can make a huge difference in distance casting. So the best tip I could give anyone who is interested in mastering the long cast is to hire a certified casting instructor or guide, just as a golfer would a golf pro, and practice, practice, practice. In addition to catching more and bigger fish, you may also experience the joy of mastering (or working toward mastering) one of the central arts of our sport. Pursuing the long cast pays off in many ways.
