Trick Casting - Shadow Cast

[netabrookie 0]

WOW! sometimes I have a lot of line out and don't want to get it all back on the reel before advancing up a creek just to have to strip it all back off, so I just keep my line alive in the air over my head as I wade up the creek. Sometimes I slip and I wind up doing one of the underhand strokes unintentionally because I am trying to keep my balance. I didn't realize that I was doing something similar to the famous shadow casting. All joking aside, I don't really understand the purpose of most of it. If I let my line go out over a pool that many times I would just pack up and go home because no respectable brookie would even consider a take after that show. I am sure that in some situations that it is effective but I will leave that to the pros and just wave my rod in the usual manner. Beside, some of the places I fish are so grown up that all you would be hooking is the trees and bushes. I did like the piano in the second video that SilverCreek posted.

[mikechell 0]

As I understand it, Spey casting is all about getting great distances in front of you, without needing great distances behind you for the back cast. It looks like an interesting way to fish deep center/shallow shore rivers where you need to get out beyond wading depths, but avoid trees and high banks behind you.

I believe "shadow casting" is a spoof of spey casting ... am I wrong? Some of you seem to be taking this as a real form of fly fishing.

 

I am starting to get confused ... is everyone being facetious ... sarcastic ... or is this a real area of fishing interest for some of you?

[netabrookie 0]

Mikechell, Mr. Borger did look pretty cool standing on the rock in the movie. I have heard of casting over ond over and over again to fool the fish into thinking there is insects flying overhead that isn't really there. After all of this casting then you present your offering and wise Mr. Fish thinks that one of the hundreds of insects that he has seen flying overhead is finally within reach. I don't know if that is the true sense of shadow casting but it sounds like the only logical explaination for throwing your line over the fish a zillion times. Take Care, Tony

[Nate 0]

Mikechell, Mr. Borger did look pretty cool standing on the rock in the movie. I have heard of casting over ond over and over again to fool the fish into thinking there is insects flying overhead that isn't really there. After all of this casting then you present your offering and wise Mr. Fish thinks that one of the hundreds of insects that he has seen flying overhead is finally within reach. I don't know if that is the true sense of shadow casting but it sounds like the only logical explaination for throwing your line over the fish a zillion times. Take Care, Tony

 

I don't really buy into shadow casting. Fish don't often snatch flies out of the air in my opinion. I would rather float that bug over them repeatedly until they fool into the take. Its a strategy I have used on occasion. My grandfather taught me that a fly can be two places (three if you count the trees I was hung up in frequently) well two places he said...in the air or on the water, and you will NOT catch many fish with a fly in the air. A finer fly fisherman I have not witnessed...shadow casting bwahahahaha....not for this cat.

[SilverCreek 0]

 

I don't really buy into shadow casting. Fish don't often snatch flies out of the air in my opinion. I would rather float that bug over them repeatedly until they fool into the take. Its a strategy I have used on occasion. My grandfather taught me that a fly can be two places (three if you count the trees I was hung up in frequently) well two places he said...in the air or on the water, and you will NOT catch many fish with a fly in the air. A finer fly fisherman I have not witnessed...shadow casting bwahahahaha....not for this cat.

 

 

Fish do jump for insects that hover. Hebgen Lake in Montana is one example. The fish there jump for hovering blue damsels. And by fish, I mean 18" to 22" rainbows and browns. Damsel flies hover while egg laying and they also crawl underwater to lay their eggs. Hence both "drowned" or sunken patterns and "hovering" patterns catch fish. Note how the egg laying damsels below hover and dip, and even crawl underwater to lay eggs.

 

 

Drowned damsels are easy to imitate but how can you imitate a dipping and hovering damsel?

 

"Blow line fishing" is a technique described by both Gary LaFontaine and Gary Borger.

 

Gary Borger wrote about it in his book, Presentation pg 286. In Gary Borger's technique you use untwisted polypropylene yarn that is flatten and ironed to straighten the fibers. Then you form a "kite" out of it by whipping finishing a loop into it and attaching it to the end of your fly line and then attaching 2 feet of 2x or 3x mono to the "kite". The heavy tippet material is to prevent break offs. The strikes are vicious.

 

When there is enough wind blowing from off shore, you raise your fly rod and the use the wind to make the fly hover and dap the water surface just like a hovering damsel fly.

 

You can read Gary LaFontaine's article below:

 

http://www.flyanglersonline.com/features/lakes/part81.php

 

Gary Borger's kite technique is more adaptable for I think and the wind does not have to be gale force.

[Piker20 0]

Or you try dapping. Ideal with these new poles, sorry tenkara rods. Dapping floss off the end and let your bushy flies blow along the surface. Been used in Ireland for years.

[SilverCreek 0]

Or you try dapping. Ideal with these new poles, sorry tenkara rods. Dapping floss off the end and let your bushy flies blow along the surface. Been used in Ireland for years.

 

 

Dapping with tenkara is OK for smaller fish but if you do that with the fish in Hebgen, you can break the rod. At worst, by pointing the rod at the fish, you will lock the rod pieces together so it will not collapse into itself. As you an see below, the tenkara rods collapse into themselves. Since there is no reel, you cannot feed line to a fish under a drag. It basically is a tug of war which you win against a fish the rod was designed for but you lose against larger fish.

 

[SilverCreek 0]

A rising and hooking or fading cast is one of my favorite tools. The rising loop gives the leader and line the opportunity to float down to the surface with some great slack. I get off the negative, or fade, much like SC's illustration and cast the positive or hooking cast by keeping the back cast and forward cast low and powerful aiming up through the forward stroke. ……… Couple it with a reach right or left and you got something.

 

 

Two of my favorite casts are the puddle cast and the pile cast. Many if not most searches on the internet will describe these as identical casts. However, I consider a pile cast an actual cast and the "puddle cast" is really a downward mend of an upward directed cast. It "puddles" the line down onto the water and produces a ton of slack line and leader. It is a great cast in situations where you cannot predict the the direction of the mend such as when the leader will land in a whirlpool or any area of complex and conflicting currents.

 

The difference between a mend and a cast is that a cast occurs before the rod stop and a mend is a movement of the rod tip after the stop. You will see in the Youtube video of the puddle/pile cast that the it is not a true cast but a downward mend.

 

Here is a photo of that Gary took of Jason making a combined puddle right reach mend. Jason directs cast upward and then mended the rod to the right and down. The fly land close to the opposite bank for a drag free float.

 

 

Here is a video of the puddle cast in my terminology but called a pile cast on YouTube.

 

 

The Pile cast is a true cast. The Pile cast is a Tuck cast performed with an air resistant fly and a very limp leader that cannot "flip" over in a tuck.

 

The Tuck and Pile casts use the same principle, but are not the "same" cast. In the tuck cast, the fly hits the water first and in the pile cast, the fly hits the water last.

 

Both cast use an overhead overpowered cast that cause the loop to "flip" over itself. The Tuck is usually used with a Weighted Nymph which drive the nymph down into the water downstream of the falling leader and line. The Pile cast is done with an air resistant Dry Fly using a very limber and longer tippet so it cannot flip the fly over. The leader tries to flip over BUT CANNOT because of the air resistant dry fly which acts like a mini parachute holding back the tippet and leader. So the fly line flips over and the leader and fly flutter down in a pile.

 

Same casting motion but different results.

 

Here is the illustration of the two casts from Jason Borger's book. The Tuck is the more solid line than flips completely over. The Pile shows the trailing distal leader and tippet with the trailing air resistant dry fly.

 

 

 

When one can perform both casts, there is an advantage to the pile cast over the puddle mend. Because the puddle mend is a high trajectory and depends on gravity to puddle the line/leader it is less accurate than the pile. Any wind or gust can make the puddle useless.

 

Secondly, I use this cast when casting over a section of fast water to a slot of feeding fish behind or ahead of a rock. On the puddle, the line closest to you falls to the water first and this means the line is being dragged downstream before the fly lands. You get a shorter and less accurate drift with the puddle.

 

On the pile cast, the leader lands first and before the line so you get the fly on the water before the line hits the water and pulls on the leader.

 

So use the pile cast when you can.

 

Why would you not always use the pile? The problem is distance. I can make a puddle at a distance that is too far for me to do a pile with my level of skill.

 

Here is a photo of place where the pile or puddle are the only two casts that will work. The fish are feeding in seam "A" and you need to cast from the bank at "B" across that fast water.

 

 

Here is another place here the fish feed in the slot B or on the other side of the A . The fish also feed in front of the rock and here the pile provides better accuracy.

 

[Piker20 0]

Silver creek, I was kinda poking fun at the tenkara thing, being serious, proper dapping uses a fly reel with the dapping floss attached to it so some big browns are caught on that. Often with a long 15ft+ rod. you could elasticate the last two sections of a tenkara rod and land some big fish on surprisingly light tippets.

[mikechell 0]

I never realized !!! Here I thought I was messing up when my line piled up and didn't stretch out like I (thought I) wanted. Turns out I was just pile or puddle casting. I am so much more better than I thinked I was !!!

[netabrookie 0]

Most of the tenkara style fishing is done on a mountain stream where a reel wouldn't be necessary anyway. Mikechell, I think I'm better also now that all of this has been explained. At least I will have a name for those goofey casts. I wouldn't give it up until I learned a lot of different cast when I first got back into this fly addiction. I try to get the fly to the fish in a manner that I think it will take it and don't even think if I should be using a pile cast or a steeple cast or whatever else. I would spin the thing around like a lasso if thats what it takes to get the fly where I want it.