VGB wrote: ↑Mon May 30, 2022 11:40 am
RSalar wrote: ↑Mon May 30, 2022 9:42 am
In either case it is a fact that newbie fly fishermen tend to watch their backcasts.
Okay, let’s try actual concepts, where does this “fact” come from? I can’t recall a single “newbie” that automatically looked at their backcast in 30 years of fly fishing.
Hi Vince,
I may have a skewed perspective of this and may not be the same as yours. The Salar in my little handle thing nickname comes from the fact that my primary target species has been the Atlantic salmon. I learned to fly cast on a salmon river and that is where I do 90% of my fly fishing. There are “public” pools and “private” pools. The public pools attract a lot of fishermen and as a general rule these fisherman “rotate” through the pool. One cast, one step, and keep moving down river while fishing. A line of fishermen is thusly formed and since the pool is only so long there is generally a waiting area. You wait your turn and then you get into the river behind the last guy and start fishing. One cast, one step as you work your way down through the pool. (I hate this kind of fishing BTW) But there is a very popular public pool near our camp in New Brunswick. We go there to see what is going on. How many fish are being caught? How many fishermen are fishing? How high is the water? Etc. We can watch the entire line of fishermen at once from the road that is up on the high bank that runs along the pool. It is a lot of fun to watch when the fishing is good. So I have watched a lot of fishermen cast in my 50 years of watching from this perspective. The best fishermen (the 20% that catch 80% of the fish) all cast basically the same way. After their wet fly has swung across the pool they make one strong backcast (usually with a haul) and one long straight forward cast (again with a haul). We don’t use Spey rods! Not sure why — probably because salmon fishermen are stuck in their ways.
Anyway the most important thing to do, if you want to be successful at catching an Atlantic salmon, is to watch the fly as it swings. I have seen fish swirl at a fly and the fisherman didn’t see it and just took a step and kept moving. The fly has to pass by the salmon in exactly the right spot. So if you miss that swirl and take a step you missed an opportunity to actually hook that fish. And not only should you watch your fly, you should keep watching the river during your back cast…. Especially if you swirled a fish — but even if you didn’t you should keep watching just in case a fish swirls at something. You want to mark that spot and get a cast to that fish.
The newbie fisherman don’t catch many fish because they make too many false casts and they watch their backcasts. They probably took a lesson and their instructor told them to watch their back cast, or something… maybe they watched a YouTube video, I don’t know where else they would learn that. False casting is just as bad, because it wastes valuable time. You want to maximize the time that your fly is in the water. It’s a total waste of time — unless you are dry fly fishing to a marked fish. Then that is all that matters. That’s when your only goal is to get a fly to land in that one spot (the fish’s cone of vision). But I see guys false casting while wet fly fishing at that public pool all the time. Maybe I shouldn’t call them newbies — maybe I should just call them poor salmon anglers. Watching the back cast and false casting are the most common faults that I see.
Does this correspond to anything you can relate to in your fishing experience?
—Ron
There will be no public displays of back cast watching by me!
