Category: Fly Fishing Basics

Fly fishing is considered by many to be complicated simply because some of the fly
fishing gear and tackle appears to be complicated. Fly lines are certainly one of those
items that at first glance, appears to be complicated. A “WF8S” designation on a fly line
box doesn’t mean very much to a person just getting into fly fishing.

With normal casting or spinning tackle, lines are designated by their strength. They use
pound-test designations such as 6 pound test line, 20 pound test line, etc. The line is the
same size from one end to the other. That’s because when you cast you are casting a
lure or bait. It’s the weight of the lure or bait that propels the cast.

Flies weight little to almost nothing, depending on the type of fly. Fly line is tapered to
help propel the cast. You are casting the weight of the line, not a heavy lure or fly.
There’s such a thing as non-tapered fly line that’s designated as level fly line, but it’s
rarely used anymore. All the fly lines are tapered as follows.

The taper changes the size of the line at certain points to assist with the cast and
presentation. Weight forward line, the most common type, has a short section of larger,
heavier line than the main, running part of the line near the front part of the fly line that
helps propel the cast.

A shooting head fly line does the same basic thing. They have a section at the front end
of the fly line that is heavier than the main running line to help propel the cast.

Double tapered fly line has a heavier section located such that the line can be used on
either end. When one end of it gets worn, it can be swapped and the opposite end used.
It also has other advantages.

Fly lines come in different densities so they can float or sink at different speeds. Floating
fly lines are the most common. There’s both sinking tip fly lines and full sinking fly lines.
Sinking tip and sinking fly lines are used mostly for wet flies and streamers fishing deeper
water.

There’s all type of specialty fly lines. Some are designed and marketed for specific
species of fish such as trout, salmon, steelhead, bonefish, etc.

In today’s fast paced world, few want to take the necessary time to learn a new sport from scratch the right way. Most everyone would just rather go out and do it. Unfortunately, that approach almost always results in a less than a satisfactory experience. Hitting the water without first taking the time to learn a few basic things about casting a fly rod usually results in frustration.

Even though casting a fly isn’t complicated at all, just picking up a fly rod and trying to learn to cast without any type of help or instructions may result a loss of your desire to fly fish. In order to get started the right way, you first need to know a little about the fundamentals of casting a fly. The trial and error method of learning to cast a fly, is a very poor one. Once you develop bad casting habits, you’ all find getting rid of them is far more difficult than learning the right way from the beginning. Bad casting habits are difficult to correct.

Even though there is no such thing as a formal education in fly fishing, you still need to learn a few things about casting a fly before you should expect very much satisfactory results. It is completely different from casting conventional casting or spinning rods and reels. With a spinning or bait casting outfit, your casting the weight of the lure or bait. With a fly rod, Instead of casting the weight of the fly, your casting the weight of the fly line.

Fly casting schools, put on by various fly fishing organizations, clubs and fly shops, can be a big help, however, you don’t necessarily have to attend a fly fishing school to learn to cast a fly.

If attending fly casting school isn’t feasible, having someone that’s qualified and proficient at casting a fly is a big help in getting started. It could even be better than a school because you will have more individual attention from the instructor. Notice I said qualified. By that I mean being able to cast a fly is one thing and being able to teach someone else to cast a fly is yet another thing. The results would strictly depend on the person helping you. This could be someone you happen to know or a guide that teaches fly casting.

If neither the school or an experienced fly angler or guide to help you it isn’t an option, you should at least watch a good fly casting video before getting out on the lawn or the water and attempting to learn using  the trail and error method. Most of them should watched more than once, one segment at a time, until you have mastered the particular thing being demonstrated or taught.

If you do attempt learning to cast on your on from watching a video, you should still have someone watch you so they can tell you what is happening on your back cast. Even though you may have to tell them what to watch for, from a distance they can tell you if your fly line is hitting the ground behind you, or not being straightened out the fly line before beginning the forward cast, etc.  

One more point. Although there are those who want to make a big deal out of it, leaning to cast a fly is easy. There’s nothing complicated about it. You should ignore anyone that tells you anything different.