Do This One Simple Tip To Improve Your Fly Casting

Slowing down is a simple tip but not always easy to do. Here is a drill to help you engrain the habit of "less is more" into your casting stroke to give you a better fly cast.

Good casting often leads to good hook-ups | photo by Ken Baldwin

Learning to cast a fly rod well involves a lot of moving pieces. Putting them all together is no easy feat; it takes time and effort.

I've been casting a fly rod for over thirty years. During the off-season, I try and practice three times a week. I'm not an exceptional caster by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not bad, only because I practice. It's like basketball or golf, if you don't practice your shot (swing) you will lose it.

I practiced this morning before I began writing this article, and the practice inspired this piece.

Rules of Fly Casting: Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast

This isn't something I'm only telling you. After thirty years of casting, I still have to tell myself, "SLOW DOWN." It's a never-ending battle. I lean into more muscle and effort, thinking this will make my cast go further, when the truth is that less effort and force are needed to improve my cast.

What happens when I slow down and use less effort? I feel the cast more, I can feel the rod load, I'm more exact with my timing, and the whole casting process becomes smoother and easier.

A Simple Drill to Improve Your Fly Casting

This drill improves many facets of my casting. It helps me with my timing, distance, better awareness of the cast's mechanics, and more control, which leads to a better cast. The eye-opening part is that I realize I don't have to try as hard or use as much effort as I thought the cast needed. In this case, less actually is more.

The Drill

Set a marker at thirty feet. Make the cast. Do it a few times until you are consistently reaching thirty feet with a good cast. Now, do the cast again, but take off twenty-five percent of the effort you used to make the original cast. Basically, try to make a successful thirty-foot cast with less effort. Go easy, don't push as hard. Try less and see if you can reach the thirty-foot mark.

Now do this at forty feet. Make a successful cast, do it until it is consistent, and then take off twenty-five percent of the effort and see if you can still make a successful cast.

Economy of Movement in Fly Fishing

Keep going until you've hit your distance limit. Over time, your distance will increase. What also happens is your casting will look and feel effortless because you are putting less effort into it. Your cast becomes an economy of movement.

Put more into your fly fishing, get more out of it. | photo by Ken Baldwin

Skilled Fly Casting Takes Practice

Basketball players practice their shot, golfers practice their swing, and quarterbacks practice their throwing motion—anyone serious about their sport and having success practices their movement. Fly casting is an athletic movement. It takes skill, timing, and technique. You gotta practice, you gotta become familiar with the feel of an effortless and accurate cast. Put in the time, and the rewards will come. KB