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.