Saltwater Quick Cast
By Captain Charlie Beadon
Saltwater Quick Cast: One of the greatest tools that you can utilize in saltwater sight fishing and flats fishing is the quick cast. As the name implies this is a cast that we use to deliver the fly to fish as quickly as possible before they either see the boat and spook off or simply swim out of casting range. If you know how to make a good overhead cast with tight loops, double haul and shoot line then you are well on your way to putting together a quick cast. Where most anglers get themselves into trouble on the flats is in making way too many false casts once they have spotted a fish and each additional false cast allows more time for something to wrong. In practice you should work to deliver a 40 foot cast within 3 forward casting strokes, a 60 foot cast with 4 forward casting strokes and so forth. The key to shooting out this amount of line is in utilizing good hauls on both the forward and back stroke to create high line speed. Next, lets look at what steps we need to take to make a quick cast. This cast really starts before you ever spot a fish; the moment you step onto the boat look around for any obstacles such as a trolling motor mount or push pole holders that might entangle the excess fly line that you have on the deck (or use a stripping basket). From there prepare your line by pulling out about how much you might need at any given time (you do not want to be pulling more line off of the reel once you spot a fish!) and dress the line properly on the deck or inside of the stripping basket. Next pull 10-15 feet of fly line through the rod tip; having this line excess line hanging from the rod tip is paramount to making a quick cast as it supplies the necessary weight to load the rod when you start casting to a fish. Moreover, 15 feet of fly line plus the leader plus the length of the rod gets you started at better than 30 feet before you even make a shoot. With the 10-15 feet of fly line plus leader hanging outside of the rod tip and the excess fly line on the deck, anchor the line below the first guide and against the fly rod handle with your rod hand and hold the fly (point out) in your line hand; there should be a D-loop of fly line in front of you. Now we are “Ready” to make the cast. Once you see a fish simply move the fly across your body and use a back cast to pull the fly out of your fingers and aerialize the fly. Once the fly is released you will need to quickly change hands at the anchor point so that your line hand is now able to haul and shoot the line. From here you simply need to shoot line on consecutive forward and back casts to gain distance before dropping to the target. Until next time, Keep on Casting!
Captain Charlie Beadon