Casting Angles (2 of 14)

Rivers and streams have a special allure for fly fishers. They're where many of our flyrod fish live, but they're also special because they are beautiful and natural. They also represent some unique challenges for anglers, so basic understanding of water dynamics, and how fish live in streams and rivers, will help make you a better fly fisher. When you move from still water to moving water, it does introduce some complexities and you need to learn how to manipulate your line so that your fly looks natural, or looks the way you want it to look. Current is both your friend and your enemy in moving water. It brings your fly to the fish, but many times, the line and leader, once grabbed by the current, conspire to make your fly look unnatural. In order to communicate what we learn about fishing in a current, first, let's get some basic terminology in your vocabulary. Casting upstream means to cast right into the current; you gather line as it comes back to you. This gives your fly a natural drift, but it puts a fly line on top of the fish, which sometimes scares them. Quartering upstream is somewhere between straight upstream and straight across the current. It's a good compromise between getting a natural drift and keeping your fly line off to one side of the fish. A cross stream is when you cast 90 degrees to the current flow, and this kind of presentation presents special challenges, as we'll see later on. The fly begins to swing or drag almost immediately after the line hits the water. Quartering downstream is between a cross stream and directly downstream. It's often used to swing a fly over salmon, steelhead, and trout, and you can cover a lot of water with this method. Downstream is just that, directly downstream. It isn't used much because the fly doesn't swing across the current and the fly drags unnaturally as soon as it hits the water.