Diagnosing Your Cast | The Principles of Fly Casting | Analysis and Diagnosis

ED JAWOROWSKI

All serious fly fishers would like to cast better. If you want to move ahead, here is a game plan for remedying problems and improving your casting.

This isn't a way to cast but instead a way to think about casting. I have long preached that there are no advanced mistakes. All casting errors involve violations of basic mechanics. I'm a staunch fundamentalist: Know what must happen in terms of mechanics to make any cast, and then make it happen.

Physics comes first, not casting rules, instruction, style, or technique. Before you can correctly analyze and diagnose your cast, you must understand the principles that determine the outcome of all casts. Then you can decide whether your cast conforms to those principles or violates them. Common sense tells you specifically what you must do to correct each cast.

Anglers too often think of casting as a series of dos and don'ts. We are told, and believe, that if we adhere to the dos, and avoid the don'ts, our casts will succeed. So we stand a certain way, hold the rod at a certain angle, point it a certain direction, move the arm to a certain stopping point, and so on.

Of course, anyone with experience knows these instructions fail to produce good casts as often as they succeed. They fail because we ask the wrong questions and get hung up on rules. Never ask "What do I do?" without also asking "Why?"