By Stu Apte
How would you like to go after an elephant armed with a BB gun? In theory, that is what we attempt to do when we go after 100-pound-plus tarpon—or any other fish you can see and must quickly cast to before they see you—with a fly rod and a comparatively light leader tippet.
The difference is, you can’t get an elephant with a BB gun, but you can catch all kinds of 100-pound-plus fish with a fly rod using a comparatively light tippet. All you must do is learn to implement the proper fish fighting techniques, and how to get your cast to the fish with speed and accuracy. I started developing and teaching this back in the late 1950s and early 1960s when I was a backcountry guide in the Florida Keys.
I will try to describe how to do the fast cast: If you are right-handed, you will have the fly rod in your right hand and carefully hold the fly by the hook pointing away from you in the first finger and thumb of your left hand. I generally fish at least a 12-foot leader, so this is a little easier for people with a shorter leader. You should have approximately 8 or 10 feet of fly line out of the rod tip.
Do a forward roll cast in the air, without letting the fly or line hit the water. Abruptly stop it before it reaches its zenith, and then shoot a little line on your back cast, once again stopping it before it reaches the end of the cast. This should load your rod enough to make a 50- or 60-foot presentation, sometimes even a 70-foot cast without even a full false cast.
Yes, this is something you must practice for accuracy, but once you get it down and it is not difficult, you will catch more fish by doing a fast cast than anything else I can teach.
Now, it is important to dress your line Line Speed so it will flow through the guides easily. Depending on where I’m fishing and the quality of the surface water, I might have to dry and redress my fly line four or five times during the day. So I keep Loon Outdoors Line Speed or Stream Line nearby so I can use it in my Loon Outdoors Line Cleaning Tool.
Reprinted with permission from Loon Outdoors: loonoutdoors.com.