Shooting line while fishing

[Malik]

Hi everyone !

As an instructor and both saltwater and dry fly fisherman, I often notice how the importance of the shoot is underestimated in our sport. Actually, we generally only focus on the distance we can add on the backcast / forwardcast shooting some line. And that’s correct — but, as soon as we are talking about fishing, there is, according to me, another crucial function of the shoot, which is its effect on the line and leader presentation. In other words, I consider the shoot, especially the timing of the shoot, as a very important skill to master if we wish to better control our presentation casts.

When we are fishing for saltwater we generally try to obtain a no slack presentation in order to have a direct contact with our fly as soon as it lands. So, here a complete and perfect turn over is crucial and we can either cast with or without shoot. If we wish to shoot line, as Bernd well explained, the critical point is to only shoot the length of the line we can really master and, especially if we are fishing for really strong fish, never let the line go off our line hand. Of course we gonna loose some distance with this technique, but distance without controlling our line and our final presentation is pointless and even sometimes dangerous in saltwater fly fishing.

As Bernd mentioned it, let our line go in our line hand and suddenly pinch it can help a lot for the turnover. As soon as we pinch the line during the shoot, both the unrolling of the loop and the fly leg tend to suddenly “re-accelerate” (sorry if they are not the right physic concepts to express it) and it greatly helps the turnover or even “catapults” the fly forward: I use this technique both on saltwater or streamer fishing, for a straight leader presentation when I shoot and I see that my cast is a bit underpowered to ensure a good turnover and in dry fly fishing, for a fly landing first presentation or to make my leader turn to the right on the last step of the svirgolato cast.

In summary, playing with the timing of the shoot allows us to better control the shape of our line and leader on the deliver cast.

My intuitive/empirical rule would be as following :

- The later we let the shoot go after the MPA (ad absurdum : no shoot), everything being equal, the straightest the line and the leader will tend to land.
- The sooner we let the shoot go after the MPA, everything being equal, the more we tend to “kill” the unrolling of the loop and the turnover of the leader and the more slack we can create in order to avoid drag (good alternative to classical underpowered curves !).
- And if we pinch the line during the shoot, we can reintroduce some speed to the unrolling of the loop.

The timing of the shoot is a great tool to play with and to have in our toolbox when it comes to presentation/fishing casts.

Best Regards

Malik

[Malik]

Ho sorry !
MPA : Maximum Power Application

[Paul Arden]

It’s where I always hear a problem when someone says just enough power to turn over the leader. I don’t fish that way; I blast it out and brake it. I hope to have a long life but not for this reason.

Cheers, Paul

[timkempton]

Paul..since you taught me this for the PUALD cast for snakehead, I use this technique all the time. In my view, very few people teach energised backcast. This is a game changer..controlled shooting line into the backcast by feathering the line with your line hand..it reduces the number of false casts, and gives you much greater distance with less effort. If I had to teach only one cast, it would be the energised PUALD cast..thanks for creating and sharing this

[Paul Arden]

Cheers dude. Well it’s more the fish that made this happen. Hayes’ 3-shot game is a big part of it. Looking back now I can’t understand why we never did it as standard. Hindsight always makes you feel smarter