The forward delivery involves gradually accelerating the rod-tip forward along the casting line, keeping the rod-tip horizontal and then bringing the rod-tip to a controlled stop, which releases the energy from the rod and propels the line forward. The acceleration is required to load the fly-rod and the horizontal path is followed to ensure that the fly-line goes out horizontally because the fly-line will always follow the path of the rod-tip.
Therefore by maintaining a horizontal path of the rod-tip, combined with pulling up the bottom hand, a tight loop will be formed during the forward cast. This is desirable because the amount of line facing into the wind will be minimal and so wind resistance will be reduced. A wide casting arc will create an open loop in the fly-line because the rod tip will deviate from a horizontal path and start curving downwards, hence opening up the loop by throwing the fly-line downwards, thus reducing the power in the forward cast.
Contrary to expectations, speeding up the delivery of a forward cast into a strong headwind does not overcome the wind resistance. The solution is to aim the forward cast lower by raising the bottom hand higher and this enables the loop to penetrate the wind.
When making the forward cast it is also important to look at a distant object at the same height as the travelling rod-tip because this helps the caster to maintain an upright posture and to stop the rod-tip at the correct moment.
