Today we continue our series of weekly posts straight from The Little Red Book of Fly Fishing – a new collection of 250 nuggets of fly fishing wisdom from Kirk Deeter and the late, great Charlie Meyers. We’re lucky enough to have gotten permission to post some excerpts from the book – read on!
Our tip for the day is about smooth acceleration while casting.
If you find this kind of this useful, you can pick up your copy of The Little Red Book of Fly Fishing right here.
Flick the Tomato
The best casting motion involves a gradual, controlled acceleration to an abrupt stop. That’s easier said than done, so imagine it this way: If you have a tomato stuck on the end of a stick, and you want to fling that tomato into a bucket 20 feet away, how would you do it? If you whip the stick, you’ll end up covered in ketchup. If you gradually fling the tomato off the stick, you might get it there.
Another way of thinking about this is to imagine throwing water from a glass. You pick up the glass, accelerate, aim, and then stop to let the liquid fly.
Same deal and same feel with the fly cast.
The forum is a brighter place thanks to your posts. Tnakhs!
As kids we would launch crabapples off willow sticks with the same technique. Good tip.