by Rene Hesse
Most of us want to, ‘get away’ from the stress of everyday life and go fly fish. We tend to be the most optimistic sportsmen and women. We will make 500 casts in a day and on every cast say, ‘There must be one there, here it comes’.
We are a great culture of sportsmen. Within this sport there are a lot of different terms and views on things that have to do with the sport. Here is a term that may change the way you look at something you have viewed differently based on experience or something you have been taught.
The word tension has a few meanings, and today we will look at how it is good for fly casting. Tension. That word can be interchanged with ‘absence of slack’. Slack in a cast is not a good thing, unless you are going for a slack line cast. Go figure.
The following is a mental process that you may want to adopt to improve your casting.
To optimize the casting stroke, there must be tension on the line from your hands to the fly before you start your cast. Here are some ways to achieve that. First, always start with your rod tip at the water line. This will put all of your line in the water and remove the sag of line from your rod tip to the water. When your rod tip is there, you now have the ‘water tension’ assisting in the slack removal when you start to move your rod tip. When you start your cast, make sure the line from your hand to the first guide is taunt. Have as little slack as possible. If necessary, remove slack by stripping in line (remember you want to be at the head or in the rear taper of your fly line before starting a cast). If you have done the above you can now start your cast. If you move your rod tip and the fly starts to move, you have tension!
Energize the line. Get as much slack out by creating tension, then start you casting sequence. The cast will take less effort if the rod is loaded by the weight of the line against the rod tip right from the start. The cast will smooth out and the loops will be easier to create with a smooth constant rate of acceleration that tension allows.
So go out and create some tension in the fly fishing arena. You will notice a difference.
