When I was just starting out fly fishing I went on one of my first trips to fish stripers on the east coast. For people that aren’t familiar with this type of fishing, it involves fishing with weighted systems and calls for long casts. I had begun my casting lessons just before the trip and could cast some descent loops. One of the most popular flies is a Clouser Minnow which has lead barbell eyes, and is quite heavy. As I cast out a long line with a lovely tight loop, I got this intense pain in the back of my head. This was the fly hitting me. I learned the hard way that day that when casting any kind of weighted system, tight loops are not what you want. What happened in this case was due to the weight of the fly, it dropped below the fly line and hit me. When this happens it causes a major tailing loop and a potentially dangerous situation of the fly hitting you or your rod, causing damage. We are all taught that tight loops are desirable when fly casting. This is true when you are using a floating line and a pretty much weightless dry fly. The tight loop will cut through the air more efficiently, allowing a longer cast. When using a weighted system gravity takes over and the line will drop faster than the floating line, thus causing the tailing loop. There are two popular ways of dealing with this situation. One is to use a Belgian Cast or Oval Cast as it is sometimes called, and the other is to just cast a large wide loop. I find with just casting wider loops you sacrifice distance. If distance isn’t a problem, widening the loops can be done by bending the wrist more during the cast. Now, if I need to cast for distance, I combine an Oval Cast with open loops. When doing this I can achieve the distance I want.
Belgian Casting Technique
A Belgian cast is simply a side cast on the back cast, followed by an overhead cast on the front cast. How I combine the two casts is to simply bend my wrist a little more on the front cast when performing the Oval Cast. The reason this cast works is the tip of the rod is moving in an oval shape and the line is under continuous tension. This doesn’t allow the line to drop below itself. I add a little extra wrist on the front cast to just open the loops slightly giving me some extra insurance to allow the fly to remain high. This cast also works well to keep flies apart when using a two fly rig.
Cast at approximately 45 degrees on the back cast.
Cast over top on the front cast and bend your wrist a little to open the loops.
This cast works well with sink tip lines, full sink lines and when using split shot on your leader. Practice this cast and you will be surprised at the distances you can achieve.
Tight lines.
Bill Spicer is an F.F.F. Master Certified Casting Instructor and Host of The New Fly Fisher Television Show.
