# 11 Line Control

Line Control: Taming the Spaghetti Monster!

Today I am going to cover a topic that I see many beginner and even intermediate fly fisherman struggle with, and that is “line control”.

As you are learning to cast a fly rod, or learning to fly fish, one of the items that you may be struggling with is how to control the extra line in your hands. When you make a cast the rest of the line slips out of your hands, or it’s on the ground and you step on it, or it gets caught on the grass or that one small stick or Grass Gremlin that sneaks out of nowhere to tangle your line just as you are making a cast. Let’s have a show of hands of the people that know firsthand of what I’m talking about.

A quick story, Years ago I was on a trip to the Green River in Provo, UT. We were there to catch the green Drake hatch, which was a fantastic time of the year to catch very large trout on Dry Flies. One of the people in the group I had the pleasure of working with was casting toward a very nice rising fish. We were finally able to hook into this large Brown Trout, and of course the Trout shifted into high gear and took off. During the fight, there was an excess of fly line on the water, as well as large amounts of panic. As this person was trying to reel in this trout and get control there was a good amount of line laying all around us, I witnessed something amazing. This angler was holding the rod in the right hand. Pick up the line with the left hand and put it in their mouth to hold line to get things back under control and on the reel.

This was the first time I had ever seen anybody use their mouth to hold and control a fly line, however, a very novel concept, I think there might have been a better way to do this, but hey, whatever works. This is the reason I thought we would cover line control.

Control hand, why do we call it “control hand,” well if you must ask, Your control hand is going to be the hand controlling all the actions and manipulations of the rest of the fly-line that is not in the rod guides, or in the air as you cast, or on the reel. Your control hand will pull fly line off the reel as you begin to cast, the control hand will pull in line when you are fighting a fish or pulling line out as you begin to cast further. The control hand will keep the line that is on the ground from tangling around your feet, whether you are on grass or in the water. If you are casting with the rod in your right hand, your left hand will be the control hand, and if casting left-handed your right will be the control hand. Several reasons this is important are as follows. When you are casting you and wanting to advance or let out line, your control hand will be the hand to pull line off your reel. When you progress to what we call a “double haul” you will use the control hand to tug the line at the correct time to build up line speed to make a longer cast. When you are fighting a fish and you now need to pull the fish in you can simple use your control hand to pull the fly line in, to recover line and your prize Rainbow you just hooked.

Now that you understand what the control hand does, the next question is how? For this example, we are going to use the right-handed caster. With the rod in your right hand your thumb is on top of the grip, fingers wrapped comfortably around the cork, fly line coming from the reel should be just below your knuckles. Do you see how it is just below your hand? Good. What we are going to do now is take your left hand and bring it “TO” your right hand and just touch it. Do not move your right hand to make it closer to your right hand. Practice this several times, your left hand will always be able to locate your right hand without you needing to look. So far this sounds pretty simple right? Now we shake things up a little bit. Grab the fly line with your left hand and place the bite of fly line in your trigger finger of your right hand. If you have done this correctly, the fly line should now be under the trigger finger of your right hand, with line hanging down from between the reel and your trigger finger.

If we look at this image we can see clearly what it looks like to have the line placed under the trigger finger and the free hand is now holding the rest of the line. (Even though the pic shows his second finger, yeah I know). From this point forward as, you are casting or fishing this should be the position that you should be in almost 100% of the time. Several reasons you want this position; we will cover it in a few minutes. Can you see in the picture, he is grabbing the fly line from “BEHIND” his trigger finger? I cannot stress enough how important it is to grab “BEHIND” your trigger, not in front of it. As you are learning to master this skill get in the habit of bringing the line behind your trigger finger. When you have practiced enough you will be able to modify this right-hand left-hand relation.

Let us try this and do a little practice right now, we are not going to cast right now. While holding the rod in your casting hand, pull a few feet of line off the reel, with your control hand lets go ahead and grab the fly line, got it? The line should be in your left hand and the rod in your right hand. Ok lets go ahead and bring the left hand to the right hand and place the fly line under your trigger finger of your casting grip, I’m going to emphasize this again, “BRING THE LEFT TO THE RIGHT” The amount of people I watch using their rod hand to case the fly line is quite comical. Have you ever watched a person try to swat a mosquito? This is what it looks like to the casual observer.

I know it sounds so simple as you read this but wait till you are on the river.  You are fighting a fish, and the current has wrapped the excess fly line around your legs, under/ around any other of the hundreds of potential obstacles or scenarios, the water current is pulling you in all directions, your footing is unstable. If you have mastery of line control, you will be able to handle all this unruly fly line (AKA the Spaghetti Monster) smoothly and confidently, to confidently regain control, and amaze your friends who are standing on the bank of the river cheering at your increadible line control skills.

Some of the other reasons for learning to use the control hand for the fly line. As you begin a casting stroke, you will be able to firmly secure the line under your trigger finger without slippage. As your skills progress you will be able to advance fly out of the tip of the rod and be able to increase distance during a cast. I’ll give you another example of this in practice.

  You are fishing and you have just set the hook on a fish, (sounds good so far) but as you hook the fish he instantly runs away from you and pulls 50 ft. of fly line off the reel instantly (getting better right?). Just as fast as he ran away from you the fish turns and begins to run right back at you at Warp Speed, you frantically try to use the reel and wind up the slack line, but it is not working, your next step is to use your newfound skills of “line control”. You begin by pulling the extra line in with your “control hand” and in conjunction with your trigger finger you have now pulled in slack line and have the fish under tension, and if you want you can reel up extra line back to the reel.

This is just a quick example of how line control will help you become better at casting a fly rod in no time at all.

Again, if you have any questions comments or feedback reach out to me.

Tight lines,

Gary