There’s no doubt about it, the ability to make a quick, yet effective, presentation is an invaluable skill on the flats. Things can happen fast, thus presenting the fly with as few false casts as possible is huge.
This is no secret of course.. After all, we’d be willing to bet that most of you would agree that a fly in the air doesn’t catch fish. However, in attempts to present the fly quickly, many anglers end up rushing their cast, most often resulting in a quick (great!), yet sloppy (eh, not so great) presentation.
So the question then becomes – How exactly do I make a quick presentation, with fewer false casts, without rushing the time and tempo required for a proper cast? Here’s a simple motto to live by:
Never make the same false cast twice!
To some degree, false casts are necessary in most situations. However, they should always serve a purpose – namely either to change direction or to adjust distance. A false cast in the same direction, using the same length of line as the previous false cast is nothing more than wasted time and should always be avoided.
On the other hand, if every false cast executed is needed to change the direction of the cast to the target, and/or to lengthen out the amount of line required to present the fly, the result should be the most efficient presentation possible to deliver the fly quickly to the fish.
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