Overcoming drag (where the fly is caused to drift differently than it would if it wasn't attached to any line; which basically means that the flyline is travelling at a different rate to the fly) is one of the most challenging aspects to fly casting.

Drag problems occur every time we cast across a river. Although some anglers suggest that drag is not a problem with subsurface methods, this is most definitely not the case. Although, there are circumstances when drag can be used to our advantage, such as swinging nymphs out of a current - a great taking zone, on the whole drag is artificial and should be avoided at all costs.

Often there are several solutions to the same problem; it's always interesting to see how different anglers cope given the same set of circumstances - it tells you a little about there psyche, sort of a Freud of the river banks ("Ahh, so you did sleep with your mother!!!" - that sort of thing).

Getting the fly to land first: Tuck Cast

• The most obvious question is not "how?" but "why?"... well there are two situations where I'll use this cast:

  • The first is when fishing 'pocket-water'. Boulder strewn rivers often contain so many varying currents that they present a bewildering puzzle. A simple solution to give ourselves that little bit more drag-free time is to land the fly before the line. So long as we can get fairly close to the pockets (and we can often get right up behind them) we can chuck the fly into position and attempt to keep the line off the water - of course the line will land eventually, but hopefully drag will have been delayed long enough for the deception to have been completed.

  • The second has nothing to do with overcoming drag; rather it is all about creating attractive 'plop' noises. If we cast our fly to land first it is quite easy to overpower the stop and get a nice 'plop' sound. Just like little bugs dropping off branches in high summer. Also useful for the cicada splash.

  In order to get the fly to land first, the technique used is to cast the fly straight over the top of the rod with a slightly overpowered overhead cast, so that when the fly line straightens the extra energy causes the fly to flick downwards. There is an important refinement on this technique; it is how we apply the extra power: instead of stopping harder, stop the tip normally and just as the line is unfurling on the forward cast, lift (or pull back) the rod tip.

  Although you can shoot line with this cast, you will have to feed the line through your fingers so that you can stop the line before you lift the tip.

  Obviously you don't follow through immediately with the rod tip to the surface as this would negate all we have set out to achieve.