Fly Casting Technique

The following fly casting technique is written with the help of Massimo Magliocco who is an Italian professional fly fishing instructor and author of authoritative DVDs and fly fishing books and TV shows, well known in Italy and in the fly-fishing community in Italy as well as abroad.

He is also the technical director of a non-profit National Sporting Association which is also a complete Fly-fishing School: http://www.flyfishingmasters.it (FFM).

The Fly Casting Technique is impossible to learn just by looking at or worse, reading about it. Yet, it is useful to write about certain points which might clarify a certain movement or concept.

Now here are Massimo suggestions and explanations:

• The scope of the technique is to SUDDENLY show the bait (the fly)
  in the RIGHT SPOT and above all in the RIGHT WAY to the trout (the fish) without the whirls of the line being noticed by the fish .
  • The TIMING of the movements is what matters!
  • The FLY must reach the spot BEFORE the "line" touches the water. (The "line" is actually composed by - in order - the BACKING, the LINE itself AND the LEADER which carries the fly)
  • To start with, we shall divide the rods in three types because the casting technique changes slightly with each rod type:
    1. short and fast (for lighter lines, e.g. #1 to #4, where the symbol "#" is simply short for "line size")
    2. medium long (for wider spaces and longer cast distances
    3. long and powerful (for heavier lines and baits/flies
    
    
    Incidentally, here are the subdivisions of fly lines which are done according to their WEIGHT:
    • Light: #1 to #4
    • Medium: #5 to #6
    • Heavy: #7 and more

    (Fly lines are then cathegorized for their TAPER, too: WF, DT, ec...more about it soon)

  (you might perhaps want to look into "fishing rod terminology" to refresh your knowledge about RAPIDITY, ACTION and POWER of a rod...
  • The casting technique can be divided in the following moments for all the three rod types mentioned above, but especially for the lighter rods:
    1. LOADING

    2. AXIS
    3. ACCELERATION
    4. ARM EXTENSION
    5. RIGHT LEFT-HAND USE(for left-handed people it should be the other, right-hand use

    (please clibk on each link to explore each fly casting technique moment)