Saltwater Casting Angles

[Michal Duzynski]

The “Stopless”/170 is extremely useful for longer casts and you will never hit the rod tip with such a stroke. Mike’s video shows the value of more open loops IMO (although he could probably use less false casts ).

Cheers, Paul

Ciao
I never false cast that much , it was only for the purpouse of the video to show that the shoulder wont fall of after couple cast.

mike

[Paul Arden]

[Graeme H]

If the fly is hitting your rod tip there are two adjustments you can make in the vertical plane. One is to open your casting arc and the other is to lift your elbow into the backcast and lower it again on the forward cast.

And the third one that I favour is to move the tip sideways after loop formation to get it out of the way. The added benefit is keeping tension in the rod leg. This also works with the side casts, but lift the tip vertically this time.

Doing this produces a very tight loop with little chance of collision.

Cheers,
Graeme

[Dirk le Roux]

With my backyard casting practice amongst trees and going for the furthest target, back-cast options are either a tight loop accurately threaded between trees or a wide-looped sideways back-cast which takes up less distance behind. With the tight-looped option, I have to look and aim behind, which I find less dependable for accuracy (and avoiding trees) than the wide sideways half-backcast which allows me to focus on the target all the time. The delivery stroke from the half-backcast starts before the line straightens and is either sideways in the “same plane” or “Belgian” overhead after coming around behind. Especially with the overhead stroke, the back-cast layout is decidedly off-track relative to the forward cast direction. Casting repeatedly to a single target, I can get consistent enough accuracy and vertical forward loops, but when using this cast on shots to targets in different directions, immediately some deviant final layouts appear. This means a few practice shots when progressing to a new target, as I have just gotten used to the previous target’s small adjustment requirements. This won’t do.

I find that a "forward thrust straight at the target" like Morsie mentions gives me the most consistently accurate and straight deliveries when alternating single PULD shots between different targets, without penalty for breaking 180. When I do the thrust right, during the start of the forward stroke and with the rod still pointed quite backward, I'm thinking "just bring it to point-and-shoot". The consequent stroke has a slight through-rotation bias and the sensation is the rod quickly ending up at alignment between eye and target, pointing straight at the target. It works on overhead as well as sideways strokes. To check that it works also with flies heavier than casting fluff, I put a de-hooked Clouser on the same old 4 weight SA XPS practice line and got consistent enough results, though having to work harder to smoothly get the Clouser out to 50 ft.

A trick which I think further benefits consistent accuracy with this thrust is to open the rod hand at the moment the rod is close enough to its pointing at the target and just have the rod handle lay there. I suspect this opening the hand avoids small errant movements my hand may tend to impart right at the last. When shooting line, I find quite satisfying the lively, slightly wobbly way the line and rod dance as the line runs through the guides and the slightly more energetic slap when the line hits the reel. Shooting line or not, I love watching down this “barrel” and line the surprising accuracy even at distant targets. Feels like you just fired off a crack shot! You might like it as well. Let me know!

Regards,
Dirk

[Morsie]

Malik the best solution is the Belgian oval constant tension cast. Happy to learn any others though, but I'm yet to see one. Fly line taper and sufficient line mass is also in my view at the heart of making it easier. I do use the 170 a lot but not for heavy flies. Its superb when you get stuck in the middle of the boat, clears heads by many feet, its also a great cast for poppers.

Cheers, Peter

[Paul Arden]

One of the first things I do when I have a new client, is to throw my shoes out into the lake and ask them to hit them (they float!). While some SW fish are very obliging and will veer off course to take a fly - I’ve seen queenfish move 6m in a totally different direction to eat fly - many fish aren’t.

Tarpon for example - I got the impression that you almost had to stick the fly in their mouths, three-dimensionally, taking into account of the other fish in the shoal

The shoe is a good challenge because if they can’t hit the shoe when it’s floating in front of them, then there is absolutely no way they can accurately place the fly in front of a fish that appears without warning and is gone after 1-2 seconds!

Cheers, Paul

[Malik]

Malik the best solution is the Belgian oval constant tension cast.

Hi Peter,
Thank you for your answer, but you probably misunderstood my question or I was not clear enough. I was asking for other tricks to minimize the “kick” of heavy flies on the deliver cast when we are side casting. You gave one (thrust on the target) I gave another one (thrust on the target with a slightly rise of the rod tip during the deliver cast) and I would know if others sexyloopers have some tricks to “tame the kick” on side cast presentations with heavy flies. Sorry if I’m OT.
Best regards
MALIK

[Morsie]

For avoiding that kick the Belgian cast is one of the solutions Malik and probably the best one in my view, although the back cast is to the side and the forward cast more vertical. Shooting line into the presentation cast helps too, especially with the Belgian. The other is the cast where the fly leg goes under the rod leg, its known by a few different names. Done properly this will land a fly "like a butterfly with sore feet" because its not coming over the top. At the end of the unrolling it does kick but it kicks upwards and then settles gently. It has to be done to the side of course.Those are all I know.

Peter

[Malik]

Thanks Peter.
Making the fly kicking upward is a very goo trick . I'll try some upside down loops with heavy flies to check what happens.
I also play a lot with the shoot to control the presentation of the fly and the leader (not only with the dry).
I'm also a friend of the "Belgian" cast, and I agree with you, this kind of casts are great fishing casts and provide a very good control of the line. But when I'm talking about side cast, I'm talking about very low side cast, on or even under the horizontal. You need some line speed to do it — which is not exactly the best bedmate of non kicking flies (but here you are right again : shoot helps)
Best Regards .
Malik

[Taylor8]

Any recommendations on how to execute the cast that kicks the fly upwards?

My attempts at this cast have always been inaccurate and inconsistent.