THE CASTING CORNER

Contributed By: Rene J. Hesse Certified Casting InstructorFederation of Fly Fishers & Atlanta Fly Fishing and Camping Meetup Organizer

The rain is pounding and there is lightning. I might as well tie a few flies. After tying a few flies, the rain stopped, the sky parted, and the sun came out. Wow, perfect I thought. Then the wind picked up a little and I pictured having to make a few ‘wind casts’ to get my fly to the fish from my little plastic boat in the neighborhood lake. I’m chasing sunfish, crappie, and bass so the cast doesn’t have to be long or very accurate. I can do this.

I’ll just position the boat so the wind is on my line hand side and let the wind push me down the bank. That way, the line is on the casting arm side, downwind, and everything will be good. If there is a situ- ation where the wind comes around a little more to my back, I can use a ‘Belgian wind cast’. That will keep the line low to the water on the back cast and I can circle up and let the wind take the line almost like a kite to the target, over my line hand side.

The wind is picking up, so maybe, the boat handling will be putting me in a position of having the wind coming into the rod hand. Oh, the good old offside cast. All I need to do is tilt the rod tip over my other shoulder and let the wind carry the line on the downwind side of my body. That should work, but now the wind is blowing at about 15 mph.

What if I have to cast into the wind? I guess I need to set reasonable expectations about how far I can cast. I must remember to aim my back cast up high and my forward cast down to the target like a wedge. Going to need a lot of line speed. Can’t forget to haul on that one. Wait, the wind is now 30 mph!

Just forget it, I’m going to go eat. To learn these wind casts and more, check out Fly Fishers International, or let’s set up a casting session. www.flyfishersinternational.org/ Learn/Learning-Center-Resources rjhesse@bellsouth.net

Contributed By: Chris Scalley River Through Atlanta Guide Service

Now that the trout have had all of March and April to capitalize on Spring hatches, the fish have been conditioned to look to the surface for food. This will create some great opportunities to get some dry fly action, especially when the adult stages of caddis die and casting to rising fish gorging on “spent caddis” can be very productive. Dry fly action where you actually get to cast to rising fish is a rare window of opportunity, so enjoy it, when you’re at the right place at the right time. But now that we are at the end of the Spring hatches, I recommend trying dry flies even if you don’t see physical rises. Try fishing the usual stream features like foam lines, seams, tailouts and shallow riffle water with dries, even if you don’t see fish. You may be shocked at how many dry fly bites you get blindly prospecting with dries in May!!!