Last week we had the pleasure of hosting Tim Rajeff at Andros South. As many of you know, Tim is the man behind Airflo Fly Lines in North America, and Echo Fly Rods everywhere. He’s also a very successful competitive caster – he’s got the chops to back it all up.
Anyhow, Tim was kind enough to pass on some casting pointers to anyone who was interested. Your fearless editor didn’t pass up the chance to pick Tim’s brain – this is one of the tips that Tim dropped on us!
Accelerate Your Haul
We all know that one of the fundamentals of fly casting is the fact that your rod hand accelerates through the casting stroke, whether on the forward cast or the back cast, and then comes to an abrupt stop. Do the same thing with your line hand and your double haul.
Rather than just giving your line a uniform yank when you haul, accelerate smoothly with each haul. Start out slow, gradually build speed and give the haul a little ‘pop’ at the end, just prior to stopping your line hand. One way to achieve this acceleration with your line hand is to break your wrist right at the end of your haul – that will really generate some speed at the end of your stroke.
Just as it does with your rod hand, accelerating the motion of your line hand in your haul will add line speed and generate tighter loops, and those are two areas where more is always better!
Being there when Tim was there was truely a highlight for me…being a novice with a flyrod Tim walked me through a quick series of tips that helped me land my first bonefish. Fishing was hard this week due to weather and winds, yet he managed to make it happen for me. Thanks Tim and Thanks to the great team at Andros South for making a most memorable week. Will see you again soon.