The Board

Excellent points there, Flavio and Zhongxiang! A couple of things I would add from my perspective, when dealing with a fish it’s important to look at the precise point where you want to place the fly. Looking at the fish or practising placing the fly one side or another doesn’t matter if instead of watching the fish the first thing you do before making your backcast is to pick your target. I actually point my rod at the target as the first thing I do (usually).

10ft/9ft leader etc I think that may be a personal thing. I know I have more reach with a longer leader. What affects and shortens my leader is not accuracy rather it’s the fight with the rod angled downwards. Leader is going to be inside the rings, and the less and the less knots the better. When it comes to fly placement 10ft is about right for me. But there again I’ve had that same leader length for a very long time now and maybe most important is to practice and fish with the same fixed leader length.

Thanks for replying so far! Yeah that Torque Twist is something else Graeme. It’s great for little reposition “mends” as well. It makes the movement from the boat less and less likely to spook a fish rising at this point as well.

Cheers, Paul

Paul is an inventor, and he developed this cast by necessity to catch Giant Snakehead . He has caught more Giant Snakehead on fly than anyone else in the planet. If there is only one cast you should learn, this is it. This cast is based on five rules.
Rule 1. Start with a rod length of line outside the rod tip. Lift the line until the fly is on the surface, then pick up the fly into the backcast. This applies to streamers, gurglers, dry flies. This rule also applies in spey casting. The fly should not move. It should lift cleanly off the water. Do not bloop the fly. It should come of soundlessly. Put lipbalm or Vaseline on the leader to stop it sinking.
Rule 2. Slip line. Once the fly is on the surface, slip line as you lift the rod until the rod is almost vertical. This will add another 8-9’ of line.
Rule 3. Shoot line into the backcast. Very few people teach an energised back cast. Without a good backcast, there is no good forward cast. Chris Korich explained this very well in his Vimeo and Youtube videos. As you slip line, when the rod reaches near vertical, pinch the line, haul and shoot line into the backcast. This will add another 10-20’ to the cast. You now have 40-50’ line outside the rod tip. The backcast is now energised.
Rule 4. Forward cast. Make a normal forward cast, adding a haul as required
Rule 5. Torque twist. At the end of the cast, when you haul and rotate to the stop, Paul has invented the Torque Twist. As you rotate your wrist, add the Torque Twist. This is simply done by rotating your hand so that your palm is facing up at the end of the stroke. This will give a very tight arrow at the end on the flyline/leader junction.
Like all things..practice, practice practice… there are no shortcuts. Put a snakehead somewhere in front of you, and getting fly into the zone within 1-2 secs means this cast must be automatic…you don’t have time to think. Use this as your foundation cast and your casting and fishing efficiency will improve. You will have more confidence and more fun.
This is a fishing cast. It is not taught in fly casting schools. I use this cast in every fishing scenario.
What does it do
1. Eliminates the number of false casts
2. Allows you pick up the fly and flyline cleanly off the water and re present. This is critical with fast moving species such as bonefish, tuna, permit, tarpon etc.
3. It is a fundamental cast that applies to most fishing situations
4. Allows you to go snakehead fishing with confidence
5. You can use this cast with a lot of line on the water. If you can lift the line and fly off the water , you can energise the backcast.
Thank you for sharing this cast Paul…it is truly worth learning.

“Invented” is always a bit strong. Because you often find people doing something similar! The whole package is probably unique and very highly developed. But Snakehead are a bit different in that in order to be consistent or even in the game, you must learn this shot and the better you become at executing it, the more fish that will see your fly. And if you can’t do it, you can be here for a week and not one fish will see your fly

The thing that I found really fascinating was just how short the casting stroke line hand connection time needs be to make the back (and forward) cast work. It’s just a fraction of a second. Hang on too long and you fail to shoot line, open the loop, throw a low backcast - but just *touch* the line at the right moment and the loop flies. If I invented anything it was that

The great thing about it, is that after you’ve got the basics there is more. Particularly you have slipped-lift change of angle shots and reverse or backhand shots. Once you’ve got that in there you can be pretty dangerous with free-risers!

Incidentally I do tilt the angle of the loop sometimes because you can use this to bend the leader around the back of babies. It’s not a difficult shot off the casting shoulder - right shoulder hooking the fly in to the left. I’m certainly at the point now where I use this when the shot appears and it is useful. Just tilting the plane with no other adjustments bends the leader - so it’s easy. Having ingrained it I’m going to practise bending the fly the other way now.

I can’t remember if this is on video; certainly I must have shown it to quite a few of you. And easy one to practise too; just practise casting around the ring! Because all we are doing is tilting the plane it’s an easy one to add to toolbox and can be done under pressure.

Cheers, Paul

Advice from all these experienced people has helped a great deal. I continue to practice using a 10 wt NRX rod, a 9 wt SA infinity salt fly line with a 50 foot head, and a 10.5 foot saltwater leader from Rio coupled with a popper (crease fly). The fly line is dressed and the leader is smeared with flotant. This cast is certainly about multi-tasking but in my current practice sessions I have focused on the pick up of the fly. In my most successful casts I can see the leader lift upwards at a low angle, maybe 20 degrees. While the leader straightens at this low angle I am slipping line. Then the fly becomes airborne and I shoot line into the back cast. There's still lots of work to do before it all comes together.

The Infinity Salt is a great line for this cast, Eugene. I’ve gone from Tarpon Taper, to Redfish to Infinity Salt. That came about because I wrote to SA to tell them how much I liked the Redfish line, and Josh sent me a prototype Infinity that they were working on at the time.

Like you I underline. I’d rather have a 9 1/2WT line on a 10WT rod than a 10 1/2WT. And the Infinity works very well from a very short pickup ~2m of flyline or even less. With the Redfish I found I needed more line on the water and that makes angle changes far more challenging.

I use a hand tied twisted leader. I was asked to make a video of this. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’ll try to get some slow motion video up of this cast. There was a pretty good shot at the start of this one...

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Cheers, Paul

Good stuff Paul - Cool !!

Happy Holidays,
Craig

Hi all!

I think the slip on the lift and the direct target approach might be one of the most interesting things Ive come across in flyfishing ever.

It boils things down and makes a huge difference in many situations. I am still learning it and implementing it into my game but last summer the fast, direct shots worked well, especially on spinner falls and on crusing fish on lakes.

Its worth the work for sure. And what surprises me the most is the "less is more" thing on the touch-haul on the lift. First was thinking firm grip on the line and high speed long haul. But I kept loosing grip due to being to eager, and when that happened the backcast loop took off like mad. Now I practice on pulling into an early slip. The sooner I let go the more powerful the backast loop becomes.

I belive that an early release is effective because its permits the lower leg to develop more freely. You get more weight out faster with less loss.


Best regards
Stefan

Hi Stefan,

I’ve looked closely at the early release on video and what is happening is that the release point is while the rod is still completely bent early in the stroke, and now throughout the rest of the “Stroke” line is being slipped into the fly leg (not rod leg, which forms much later), so we are in fact extending the fly leg length after the release of the haul.

That was actually slightly mind-blowing to me! And that it still works is also fascinating

Cheers, Paul

Hi Paul!

Thats cool! Did not know that. So a longer fly leg earlier, more weight on the move gives better shoot of line into the rod leg and better tension. Sums up to a more efficient backcast then?

All that out of that small initial move, very, very cool! But the first move is usually crucial in fly casting so I am not that surprised when I think of it.

Best regards
Stefan

What I shall do this week is to mark up a line like a zebra so we can see what it is doing with relation to the rings. It would also be great to have one of those “hauling release lights” that Lasse uses. Maybe the line markings will be enough. I’m not entirely sure that the release light will work because that’s just on/off and there might be a friction slip involved.

Something I also found quite fascinating is that at the beginning of the forward cast I am also slipping line. Quite similar to “slide loading”. I actually had no idea I was doing this until I watched a real time Snakehead shot. It makes sense when you think about it but I’ve yet to try teaching this.

I’m not entirely sure when I slip on change of direction pickups. This aerielised single Spey/ COD Belgian Cast pickup is very difficult to teach with line slip. But necessary of course with free-risers.

Cheers, Paul