Author Archive | John Symonds

Why are casting skills so important? When we are fishing in the river, our ability to cast properly can help us to:- Place the fly accurately and delicately Make the fly move naturally on or below the water surface Eliminate drag by  manipulation of the fly-line Overcome difficulties caused by undergrowth, trees and other obstacles […]

This article was written by my friend Daniel le Breton and I did the illustration. All of the energy in the cast comes from the caster but we are going to discount the energy needed to move the body, joints and muscles of the caster and we are going to concentrate on the energy applied to […]

I am grateful to my friend Daniel le Breton reviewed this article before it was posted. Recently, a client that I was guiding asked me “What is the purpose of a fly-rod” and it caused me to think of a good answer, which forms the basis of this post. You may already appreciate that a fly-rod […]

When we are casting our main fishing objective is to turn the fly-line over and to present the fly in front of a fish. Depending on the fishing situation we may wish to make a long cast as well. To achieve both of these aims we have to ensure sure that the fly-line is:- Pulled along […]

My friend Daniel le Breton made the major contribution to this article. The term “rod loading” is used quite widely for describing how the action of the caster causes the fly-rod to flex and often the expression “I could feel the rod loading” is used to describe the feedback that is felt, at the casting […]

All casters have the inclination to test their ability by distance casting. It is often used as a measure of their competence against other casters or to check their personal skill development. The amount of kinetic energy that is present in a fly line, at the point when it is launched during the cast, will […]

A definition of the perfect cast could be “the action of straightening the fly-line and aligning it with the direction of the forward cast by pulling it from the rod-tip, whilst providing it with sufficient kinetic energy for it to turn over, completely, after the rod tip has stopped moving”. As instructors we are indebted […]

An important aspect of Spey casting is the formation of the D-loop, which is used to restrict the amount of fly-line that extends backwards prior to making the delivery cast. The top of the D-loop is connected to the rod-tip and the bottom is held by water adhesion causing anchoring. There are a number of […]

When a fly-line is resting on water the molecules of water enter the pores within the fly-line’s surface and due to the cohesion between these molecules and the molecules in the main body of the water this causes adhesion or line stick. The amount of adhesion on the fly-line, without taking into consideration the leader […]

The casting arc could be defined as the angle through which the rod-butt pivots from the beginning of the cast until the initialisation of the stop. Some might say that it is the angle that the rod-butt pivots from the beginning until the end of the cast but this is not specific enough because the […]

From when the fly-line is first peeled off the water until the launch point in the forward delivery, the fly-line must be kept constantly under tension, otherwise it cannot be controlled. There are some special casts which utilise slack line to achieve a desired effect, such as a negative mend but these are special cases […]

The fly-rod can be used as a lever but perhaps not in the same way as we visualise a normal lever, such as in the case crowbar which can be used for applying a lot of force with very little physical effort. When we want to we can use the fly-rod to the move the […]