Starting the cast

[GEK79]

Hello all hope all are well.. After spending a season at the river I can now roll cast not excellently but enough for my small river..

When lough fishing how much line do I take off the reel to start the cast and do I roll cast the line to get line straight in front of me..
I fish with a 9ft6 rod 6w..
Any help on this part of the start up will greatly help.many thanks
Gary

 

[easker1]

you would need a bout 30 plus feet to get the rod working, Lefty Kreh uses what he calls a water cast bringing the o/head in after a roll cast, easker1

 

[bobmiddlepoint]

you would need a bout 30 plus feet to get the rod working, Lefty Kreh uses what he calls a water cast bringing the o/head in after a roll cast, easker1

I'm guessing Lefty isn't much of a dibbler then?

Anyway I simply make sure the fly line is outside the tip ring, pull a couple of yards off the reel and overhead cast that onto the water. The thing to do then is not pull more line off the reel while the flies sit static in the water because the moment they first hit the water is one of the most likely times to get a take and you don't want to be faffing about with the reel. Instead keep and eye on the flies while slowly raising the rod ready for the next cast while pulling more line off the reel and away you go. If you need more line off the reel again do it during the lift and back cast not when the flies land.

I have yet to find a problem loading a rod with only ten feet of fly line out of the tip ring, just swing it faster!


Andy

 

[ohanzee]

Hello all hope all are well.. After spending a season at the river I can now roll cast not excellently but enough for my small river..

When lough fishing how much line do I take off the reel to start the cast and do I roll cast the line to get line straight in front of me..
I fish with a 9ft6 rod 6w..
Any help on this part of the start up will greatly help.many thanks
Gary

It is commonly advised to roll cast out to get a straight nicely tensioned line with no slack to then lift into an overhead cast, I personally don't bother but if you strip off 30' or so onto the ground, then just wiggle the rod tip, the line on the ground will wiggle through the rings into water at the rod tip, if you then just raise the rod tip into a roll cast...
Personally I just pull off 30' or so and zip it straight into a false cast then out initially, when fishing with wet flies though you will often have times when you bring the flies right in and need to roll cast to get the line out enough to make an over head cast.

 

[kerryjordan]

×

 

[bobmiddlepoint]

...when fishing with wet flies though you will often have times when you bring the flies right in and need to roll cast to get the line out enough to make an over head cast.

And yet thousands of wet fly fishers bring their bob fly to the dibble right under the rod top and then overhead cast fine without a roll cast. Roll casting and proper fishing of wet flies don't go together.

 

[Uncas]

Hello all hope all are well.. After spending a season at the river I can now roll cast not excellently but enough for my small river..

When lough fishing how much line do I take off the reel to start the cast and do I roll cast the line to get line straight in front of me..
I fish with a 9ft6 rod 6w..
Any help on this part of the start up will greatly help.many thanks
Gary

Gary,
You can also hold the end of the fly line in your left hand where it joins the leader, this is handy fishing from a boat or fishing a dry fly, With the same hand pull of line from the reel and roll it out still holding line until you have enough line out to make your back cast.
This also is handy if you have obstructions behind you, You then go into a steeple-cast
Sounds more complicated than it is.

 

[ohanzee]

And yet thousands of wet fly fishers bring their bob fly to the dibble right under the rod top and then overhead cast fine without a roll cast. Roll casting and proper fishing of wet flies don't go together.

I'd agree, I hate roll casting, but on a previous thread the roll out into an overhead cast seemed to be the thing.

 

[Tangled]

Is there anything behind you on this lough? What kind of fishing?

 

[GEK79]

×

Is there anything behind you on this lough? What kind of fishing?

Depends on height of water when she's low I have a good space behind me most of the way round.. When she's full I have problems with trees Heather ferns reeds cliff faces.. At the moment u can walk round her..

 

[GEK79]

×
Many thanks Uncas will source a steeple cast to see what is needed.. Many thanks as always
Gary

 

[Tangled]

Depends on height of water when she's low I have a good space behind me most of the way round.. When she's full I have problems with trees Heather ferns reeds cliff faces.. At the moment u can walk round her..

Well, normally you retrieve to your feet, pause for a few seconds - 'cos that's when the fish likes to frighten you - then flick it into the air behind you, a few false casts and out again. The roll cast doesn't really figure in it.

You *can* roll cast but to do that you have to leave a lot of line in the water so you're not fishing the cast out. You use the roll cast because you can't use the overhead cast - usually because you've got a lot of very tall stuff directly behind you. It's not the usual form of a cast to use on a lake because it's not as powerful as the overhead so doesn't go out as far and can't be fished out to your feet so you only get half of each cast fishing.

Personally I love the roll cast, it's really useful in tight situations and on rivers we do it all day long as part of the spey cast but it does need a decent lump of line out and a water anchor to give it some umph.

To get back to the original question of how much line needs to be out to perform a roll cast, it's a really good question and it's rarely mentioned. The rod is loaded by the line in the 'D' loop and friction from the line still on the water - the water anchor. If you have too much line on the water the friction will overwhelm the cast and it'll collapse, too little and it'll collapse too. You don't have time to measure it but it's the length of line necessary to create that perfect D loop - I reckon it's something around 20' but I'd like to know the answer too.

 

[taffy1]

Hello all hope all are well.. After spending a season at the river I can now roll cast not excellently but enough for my small river..

When lough fishing how much line do I take off the reel to start the cast and do I roll cast the line to get line straight in front of me..
I fish with a 9ft6 rod 6w..
Any help on this part of the start up will greatly help.many thanks
Gary

How close to the bank are you standing? The first cast would normally be taken standing well back from the waters edge & casting overland, fish aren't always out in the middle but sometimes, patrolling the very edges of where you decide to fish.

 

[ohanzee]

Well, normally you retrieve to your feet, pause for a few seconds - 'cos that's when the fish likes to frighten you - then flick it into the air behind you, a few false casts and out again. The roll cast doesn't really figure in it.

You *can* roll cast but to do that you have to leave a lot of line in the water so you're not fishing the cast out. You use the roll cast because you can't use the overhead cast - usually because you've got a lot of very tall stuff directly behind you. It's not the usual form of a cast to use on a lake because it's not as powerful as the overhead so doesn't go out as far and can't be fished out to your feet so you only get half of each cast fishing.

Personally I love the roll cast, it's really useful in tight situations and on rivers we do it all day long as part of the spey cast but it does need a decent lump of line out and a water anchor to give it some umph.

To get back to the original question of how much line needs to be out to perform a roll cast, it's a really good question and it's rarely mentioned. The rod is loaded by the line in the 'D' loop and friction from the line still on the water - the water anchor. If you have too much line on the water the friction will overwhelm the cast and it'll collapse, too little and it'll collapse too. You don't have time to measure it but it's the length of line necessary to create that perfect D loop - I reckon it's something around 20' but I'd like to know the answer too.

I can do a jump roll to 75' so I'm not sure where you get the idea a roll cast is not powerful, and a roll cast is no different to an overhead cast in terms of bending the rod, if you lift 20' you will get a similar response from the rod as you would lifting 20' in an over head cast.

For most lines, and it partially depends on the profile of the line, you can roll 40' plus leader before it needs to be lifted into a jump roll, and a jump roll with a haul and shoot should take you to 75', same distance that most struggle with an overhead cast.

 

[Tangled]

I can do a jump roll to 75' so I'm not sure where you get the idea a roll cast is not powerful, and a roll cast is no different to an overhead cast in terms of bending the rod, if you lift 20' you will get a similar response from the rod as you would lifting 20' in an over head cast.

Have you ever seen a distance caster use a roll cast? Of course a roll cast is less powerful!

 

[PaulD]

Have you ever seen a distance caster use a roll cast? Of course a roll cast is less powerful!

I wonder why salmon fishers use Spey casts?

 

[Paul_B]

Most of use are visualising where you fish, however I just pull some line off and wave the rod about until I get enough line into into the air to get past the weed growth and then cast out. I'll fish this bit, gently retrieving while pulling some more line off the reel and then cast again, gently retrieving again while pulling line off the reel etc etc, until I feel I'm at a comfortable casting distance.

When I get to comfortable stage I'll start to move closer to the water.

I find that standing back and doing things gently at first catches more fish than paddling into the water and thrashing it with the line until the fish have all been spooked away

 

[Tangled]

I wonder why salmon fishers use Spey casts?

The Spey cast is used so that the caster can wade down a river and cast without worrying about the trees and bank behind them. Many rivers would be unfishable without it - for fly at least.

It's also a much better cast than the overhead for changing direction which you have to do every cast on a river. It's an efficient cast for it's purpose and is powerful enough - particularly when used with 15’ doublehanders.

 

[easker1]

to each his own, I try not to use more than 2 false casts, which is why I tend to roll cast first, and then lift off, some writwer once said when the flies are in the air the fish wont see them, I was in a boat with a guy who insisted on 6 or 7 false casts, there was no way I could convince him not to do it, I don't fish with him much now, easker1

 

[PaulD]

It's an efficient cast for it's purpose and is powerful enough . . .

'Put quite simply:- a spey cast is a roll cast preceded by a bit of line repositioning.' - Sexyloops - https://www.sexyloops.com/flycasting/tspey.shtml

Pwerful enough?

10:2:2019 Lee Cummings - 62m. God knows what he'd do with an overhead cast!