Roll Casting Faults

The most common fault of all is a failure to use the bend in the rod effectively. The natural thing seems to be to try and lob the line out there, instead of flicking the rod. Forget all about the line, instead concentrate on the rod. Make it 'bounce'.

The most common faults are thus:

The end of the line travels behind the caster and hooks around some bushes:
The line was not slid slowly and gently across the water surface.

The line goes out in a large circular loop and the end fails to straighten:
Either a lobbing action was used instead of a flicking/bouncing movement, or the end of the line was not 'anchored' to the water surface.

A bouncing feeling was felt and the loop travelled forwards but the line didn't straighten:
Either not enough line in the D-loop / too much line on the water or not a crisp enough flick. The more line we can put in the D-loop the less force we need apply to the cast. You can stick more line in the D-loop very easily by reaching behind you with a straight arm, as you set the cast up (remember to position your hand level with your ear before you hit the forward cast).

You hook yourself: :-)
You failed to place the line half a rod length to the side.

NB a strong crosswind can blow the flyline into your body. Sometimes in the first lesson I teach how to deal with this predicament. However this is Karen's first lesson, and we didn't do this. Karen is left-handed and has excellent co-ordination with both hands, so instead of dealing with the wind in the usual fashion, I was more interested in developing ambidextrous flycasting ability. Left-handed people often (although not always) pick this up immediately. Dealing with awkward cross winds will be dealt with fully in lesson 2.

Now I wonder if Steve's left-handed too.