Prep Your Cast for the Flats
All of our lives move at different paces and fly fishing finds a unique way of fitting into each of our worlds. Some of us obsess, day and night, making practice a priority, and others may not even think about picking up a rod between fishing trips. Life, kids, work, etc. all get in the way of practice time. At the end of the day, there’s no right or wrong way to experience the sport and the beautiful places that fly fishing takes us. However, a little practice goes a long way. If you can rustle up some time to practice your cast or to book a local instructor/guide, you will be rewarded enormously. Our expectations for fishing success should have a direct correlation with how much time we pour into honing our craft. Luckily, good guides and great weather can put notice anglers in a position to succeed but conditions are rarely a 10/10. Working on the following can help you to hedge your bet:
Pause on Your Backcast - Don’t let the simplicity of this tip fool you… it’s harder than it sounds. It takes practice, timing and patience. When fish show up in the flats element it’s a natural and common mistake for anglers to rush the cast. When the cast is rushed, the pause on your backcast is often the part of the stroke that suffers the greatest. Without a long enough pause on your backcast you are not allowing the line to fully roll out behind you. When your line doesn’t get a chance to fully roll out behind you, your forward cast will be robbed of energy and power. We need to let our line fully roll out so that when we start our forward cast we are powering the stroke forward against the weight of the rolled out line. Seeing a permit in skinny water gets the heart pounding… take a deep breath, slow down and focus on timing.
Tip: There is nothing wrong with watching your backcast unroll behind you to ensure that your timing is spot on. Do this during practice until the proper pause is second nature. Remember that casting more line requires a longer pause, less line is a shorter pause.
A proper pause on the back cast allows the rod to load with plenty of energy.
Lock Eyes on Your Target - When you identify your target on the flats pretend you are in a staring contest with your quarry. Stare your target down and try not to break your attention. If you stare at the tail of a fish and you have good mechanics, the odds are you’ll cast right at the tail. If you stare at the nose, same thing, you’ll likely deliver your fly to the nose of the fish. If I want to lead the fish by three feet I am going to quickly pick a target three feet in front of the fish, stare it down and deliver my fly accurately. Long story short, our eyes deliver important messages to our brains, telling us exactly where our target is in space and time. Trust your eyes, lock onto your target, and watch your hook up rate and accuracy improve. For a deep dive into this topic, which I highly recommend, I suggest a listen to April Vokey’s podcast with Josh Nugent on the science behind precision casting.
Tip: Take deep breaths, clear the head and simply stare your target down until you’re hooked up.
Find you target and STARE it down.
Minimize False Casts - Being able to quickly deliver your fly to the target with minimal false casts will make you an efficient angler on the flats. A quick cast allows you to take advantage of presenting to bonefish when they give us the best opportunity to sneak a fly into their world. A fish may only give you a good presentation angle for a brief moment so being able to get your fly in front of the fish with minimal false casts will not only make you less likely to spook fish, but it will allow you to take advantage of the right moments to deliver the fly.
Tip: Try letting more line out on your forward AND back cast. The quicker you can lengthen the line to the appropriate casting distance, the more quickly you’ll be ready to lay that fly down in front of a fish.
A quick, stealthy cast getting it done as a bonefish creeped into range along the edge of a mangrove.
There are many things out of our control in the sport of fly fishing but casting and presenting the fly are both disciplines where practice allows us to constantly grow and improve. We hope to see you at Soul Fly Lodge to put that casting practice to good use in the near future!