When teaching kids and adults the art of casting a fly, one of the hardest things to get across is to not try too hard. The harder and faster your move the rod back and forth the less it seems to work. Here’s another gem of wisdom from The Little Red Book of Fly Fishing new, which is a collection of 250 tips from Kirk Deeter and the late, great Charlie Meyers.
This tip is about working on smooth acceleration while casting.
Flick the Tomato
The best casting motion involves a gradual, controlled acceleration to an abrupt stop. For most people that’s easier said than done, so here’s the tip.
Imagine that you have a soft tomato stuck on the end of a stick, and you want to fling that tomato at your best buddy standing 20 feet away, how would you do it? If you whip the stick, you’ll end up blasting yourself with mushy tomato. If you gradually fling the tomato off the stick, you might get your buddy instead.
Another way of thinking about this is to imagine throwing water from a glass. You pick up the glass, accelerate, aim, and then stop to let the liquid fly.
Same deal and same feel with the fly cast.