By Rene J. Hesse
Unicoi Outfitters | www.unicoioutfitters.com
It ain’t pretty”, was my response to Dr. John Mauldin and Jim Long, two buddies who were taking a break as we fished on Unicoi Outfitters property in Helen. I take pride in making good looking casts, and I take a bit of pride in catching fish, but the two do not go hand in hand with a full sink line and a heavy fly.
So what is one to do? I choose to go for the fish and find a way to get the fly to them.
The following is a cast that worked in tight cover with a sinking line and weighted fly. I don’t really know an easy way to explain it. The cast is easier to do than it may sound, and it would be much easier to show you. See if this makes sense to you.
Picture yourself being at the water’s edge, and the trees are up to or hanging out over the water. The fly is heavy enough that it could have been thrown out like a big marble. The line is full sink, so if it gets in the water, it will sink. Duh! That will kill the cast. What now?
Keep in mind this is not a long cast, maybe 20-30 feet.
Take a look around and know how much room you have above, behind, and on both sides of you to swing your rod tip around. Once you know, strip off enough line to get to the target, but only put 6-8 feet of line out of the rod tip. Place the fly in your line hand. Then, without stopping or slowing down, sweep your rod tip side to side, low to the water, out in front of you, to make another 10 or so feet of line slip out of the rod tip. Without slowing down, start setting up the ‘D’ loop by slipping more line out making figure eights with your rod tip at about eye level. When you have the right amount of line out of the rod tip and all of the fly line moving, it will want to pull the fly out of your hand. Just before it gets to that point, sweep the rod to the side and send the line under the rod tip like you would on a roll cast, but send the ‘D’ loop down parallel to the bank, not behind you. Send it back with a lot of energy.
Before the fly is pulled out of your hand, the tension on the line will be enough to load your rod, but you will need to make a 90 degree change of direction, so make sure you use as long a back cast stroke. Reach back into that ‘D’ loop. Come forward and bring your rod to your target. Release the fly as your loop is going toward the target. Keep the fly in your hand as long as possible. That will keep the water tension issue to a minimum.
I don’t know if anyone has named a cast like this. It is kind of a mix of a spey and salt water quick cast. One important thing to remember is that the line movement is all done out in front of you. Another key is line tension. The fly must be pulled out of your hand on the forward cast, not on the back cast. Although the line must have a constant rate of acceleration, it is a slow cast which uses the weight of the line to load the rod.
A good way to get the muscle memory for this is to practice pointing your finger as if it were the rod before you get to the water and make the movements. It ain’t pretty, but it works.