# 16 Practice your Fly Casting at Home

Practice your Fly Casting at home, Where the Fish are Imaginary, but the Tangles are real

Over the last several weeks I have read an increasing number of comments from people talking about “how to practice fly casting at home”?.

Whether you are totally new and just learning to cast, or a seasoned veteran, practicing fly casting makes your time on the water more enjoyable and productive.

As you are learning how to fly fish or you are just learning how to cast a fly rod, practice is the one thing that will help you more than anything else. Watching “YouTube Videos” reading articles, can only get a person so far, you need to go out and physically do it for yourself. The best way is to just go out and practice casting.

Casting a fly rod is as much an Art is it is a skill, and practice is the only way to get better. The reason I stress practicing at home, when you actually get time to get on the water and fish, you want to fish, not spend time flogging the water trying to get your casting correct. If you actually did spend a few minutes either at home, or in the park working on your casting skills, then when you are on the water fishing, you will spend less time being frustrated and more time actually fishing.

Practicing your casting is simpler than people think, there is no special place or time that you need to arrange, just find an appropriate place to practice and 15 to 30 minutes. This could be a Park, your backyard, even an indoor area like a gymnasium, heck sometimes I go in the street to cast, but I do use a junk line because the asphalt is hard on the line. There is a few things to consider when you are choosing a practice area. First there should be enough room for a comfortable forward cast and enough room for your back cast. If you are just learning, and are outdoors, choose a time when there is less wind, as you get better you can navigate the wind, but in the beginning, try to control the environment if you can.

Now you have a location ready to go, your next items you will need are your fly rod, a reel, and line and leader, and I do recommend a small piece of colored yarn as a practice fly. Several people have commented that a practice fly is not necessary for practice, but I’m going to disagree. I have several reasons for the yarn. It is important to see where your fly will land, did the leader turn over correctly, are you reaching your distance, none of this would be possible if you cant see the end of the leader and where it lands.

Now you are ready to begin practicing your casting — or, as my neighbors will call it, “Gary waving a stick at invisible fish in the yard.”

Begin by working with a length of fly line that you can manage comfortably, no need to bust out the 100 Ft. cast just yet, work with what’s comfortable, 20-30ft. is fine, just get the feel of the forward cast, the stop, watch the line turn over, get your back cast nice and smooth. Once you are feeling good and you are casting nice uniform loops, both forward and backward. Let’s start to let a small amount of line out of the control hand.

If you are casting 25 Ft, then up it to 30 Ft., as you let more line out you will need to learn to adjust your timing for that cast. As more line is in the air you will need just a split second more to allow the line to fly along its path and ultimately turn over, before the next stroke begins. One thing I try to teach my students is the ability to learn the “Feel” of the line straightening out and slight load that you will be able to feel in your casting hand. This is not something you can learn overnight, but in time you will be able to feel the load-up in your hand. This loading up is your que to begin the new stroke direction.

There are several other things that are important to a good practice session, and that is your stance. Learn the correct way to stand so you get the proper body position for casting. Stand facing your target, feet about shoulder width apart, and "relax" no need to stand as ridged as a statue. Next is your casting grip, is your casting grip in the correct placement, on the cork handle?.

Some people cast with the thumb on the top of the grip, which will give you better power from your cast, others will use the pointer finger on the top, which gives better accuracy. Downside to the pointer finger is more strain on the hand, and sacrificed power. It has been said to hold the grip like you are "holding the hand of a child", firm but not squeezing it.

Now that I ‘ve bored you to tears with my ramblings, let’s have some fun with our practice session. When I practice I will put out several targets. These don’t have to be the fancy hoop rings you see in ads they can be as simple as a water bottle placed at 20 Ft. and at 30 Ft. or even 40 Ft. if you are comfortable with that distance. Start your false casting, get comfortable with it, we’ll call this warming up. Now are casting nice and easy, try to drop the yarn fly right next to the 20 Ft. bottle. Do this repeatedly until you can drop it right next to the target without any effort at all, it will become almost a subconscious act.

Now you are an Ace shot at 20 Ft. distance. You can pick up that fly make 2 or 3 false casts, and like magic, drop it right on the bottle again and again. Let’s move up to 30 Ft. if you can, and do the same thing as before, pick up, make 2 or 3 false casts, and drop it right on the water bottle. If you are doing this you can now see the beauty of a practice session. What you should be seeing is the fly line is picked up with no effort at all, the timing is very comfortable, and when you stop your rod to drop the yarn next to the water bottle the fly line and leader will smoothly turn over, the yarn will go straight out and right at the intended target.

Ok let’s up the game a little bit. Get in position, good stance, proper grip and make that 20 Ft. cast and drop the yarn right on that target, pick up the fly and with 2 or 3 good false casts, shoot out to the 30 Ft. target, without missing a beat. This will take a little more skill to be able to hit this target repeatably and without effort.

Over time you will be able to effortlessly drop that yarn on the first target, without skipping a beat, hit the second with ease. You need to remember that casting a fly rod is all about timing, and not power.

Reason for this drill, let’s imaging you are on a river and are fishing a dry fly. You have a target fish that is 20 Ft. away and is rising to the surface, suddenly you spot a 10-pound Trout rising to the surface, but he is 30 Ft. away. Do you walk closer to the target and risk spooking this giant fish, heck no, because you practiced with changing distance, with little to no effort at all you simple re-adjust your stroke, make 2 or 3 false casts, and drop that fly right on the nose of this trophy Trout, and you are able to land it, all because you practiced for just this cast.

As you are out there and you are having a great time with your new casting skills and you start to notice that your casting hand or even your casting arm is beginning to get fatigued, this is the time to end your practice session. I have watched many students as they begin to fatigue, their casting form starts to deteriorate, and bad habits start to form, at this point

Just stop, In the 15 to 30 minutes of practicing you are forming muscle memory, this is what you strive to do. Constructing good muscle memory and not bad memory is a vital key to becoming a great caster.

As you do more casting practice make up games that could imitate actual scenarios you may encounter or have already encountered. For example, there could be overhanging brush where you fish, so practice sidearm casting. Boulders, try learning how to do a curved cast around a boulder. There is an infinite number of scenarios you can build for your own unique casting practice. Bottom line is have fun, make it interesting, the goal is to improve your casting so the next time you are on the water you will spend more time fishing, and less time flogging and fumbling around.

Have fun ands good luck, as always if you have any questions please feel free to drop me a line and shout out.

Cheers

Gary, AKA LaMachine