Casting Tips for Dry Flies Video

Sean Visintainer - 07/27/17

Dry Fly Fishing for Cutthoat

Two Simple Fly Casting Tips for Improved Dry Fly Presentation

Precision and accuracy are key factors to hooking more trout on dry flies. When fish develop consistent rise patterns as they often do during a hatch, they rise rhythmically in the same area as insects drift pass. The better you are at landing your fly in their feeding zone the higher the the odds of success.

A couple things I've noticed over the years is that anglers tend to have the same casting stroke for all situations. While that may work in general when someone can fine tune their casts depending on the tactic they can achieve better results.

Two Simple Tips for better dry fly presentation are:

Gain Control

  • By really focusing on tight, controlled casting movements you improve how your rod tracts, loads, and unloads during the cast. Tight, efficient loops translate to more accurate cast. Improve your accuracy, improve your odds of the fish seeing your bug.

Direct the Cast

  • By tweaking the angle of the cast to direct the fly towards the water you can improve accuracy. When the cast is angled towards the water odds of the line/fly getting blown around or changing course are a lot lower. Be careful to not crash the fly into the water. Stop the rod high enough to allow the line and leader to turnover and settle down smoothly and gently.