11. How To Cast A Euro Nymphing Rig (11 of 20)

- [Tom] Casting with this method is different and actually easier than traditional fly casting. However, if you've spent a lifetime casting conventional fly lines, you need to break some old habits like I did. So, George, tell me about the cast. Obviously, to me it seems stealthier. There's a quick flip, boom, the fly's in the water. You're not doing any false casting, so you're not moving your arms a lot. What are you trying to do with the cast? - [George] With the cast, what we're trying to do is fling a decent amount of weight forward, but do it in a smooth manner where the rod tip stops high and the line leader is off the water from the very beginning. And when we're doing this, basically everything you've learned about traditional casting goes out the door, because it's not casting as much as it is more of a flop. Everything is a tension here, so because we don't have mass in the leader or in the line, all we need to do is we need to have tension on the back cast, essentially that line hanging off the rod tip. These rods, these long nymphing rods are designed for just a short load at the tip. All you need to do with this cast, and what I like to do is just keep my hand out in front, keeping the wrist cocked back, and all we're going to do is just a smooth fling. That's it. Either the finger or the rod tip goes over top. But the key here to have that sighter in vision, in sight from the very start, is you need to stop with the rod tip high. So when you start and you cast here, the hand's going to start low, and all we're going to do is just flick it up. And there's no body movement. Everyone wants to try to power cast this, and when you power cast this, the shock, the line leader get discombobulated. You have slack. - Yeah, it bounces back. - And then you don't have control here to the very end. If you can just learn to let the rod do all the work for you, you're going to have control from the very beginning here. So all of this is again is just keeping this elbow in. And any time you're fishing heavily weighted flies or a heavily weighted rig, you know, basically the 180 degree rule. So wherever you want your flies to go on the forward stroke, we just need to bring the flies back, so it's a straight line from in front to behind. Hands in front and just a smooth flip. - Now you've got your eye on the sighter the whole time. - It doesn't pile up in front or anything. - Correct, that's it. It's smooth. That's all we're doing.