Bernd Ziesche | Wednesday, 27 November 2019
In the very first place was about finding all kind of strategies to help all my clients - each having a different level of fishing skills, to catch more and bigger fish.
And yes, fishing includes fly casting.
BUT, becoming a better fly caster in no way means to catch more or bigger fish. Not in general, not even close!
Lately I was following the old discussion (being started again on facebook) about great casting abilties being a catalyst in catching more fish.
In my experience 95% of fly fishermen mostly present their flies - especially when not nymph or dry fly fishing, but streamer fishing within their max distance casting range. Exactly that makes them miss a lot of chances - especially in catching big (smart) fish.
How?
Think of this (just to give one example): You cast your streamer on 35m distance. Then you allow it to sink first, because you want it to move just above the bottom, right where many fish are. Now you wait a little too long or there was just a piece of weed close the surface, making you strip your fly all the way back while having weed on it. That easily may spook several fish for the rest of the day. Yes, very likely to have spoked the big (smarter) one in the first place.
Hardly ever I see fly fishermen starting with short casts avoiding that issue. Hardly ever I see fly fishermen starting to strip back just subsurface in deeper water in order to make sure not to get stucked in the bottom in one of the first 3 (most effective) casts.
Then there are all those distance based disadvantages like more fly line between you and the fish increasing damping of each strike as well as increasing the time lack between the fish striking and you feeling it. Seriously very often reducing the avg. casting range easily can support catching fish.
Catching fish is not much about casting but learning the fishing skills and concentrating on them not casting. Problem is, we only can concentrate on one at a time!
Instead I see nearly all of us trying to rip all fly line of the reel and starting right away with long casts. Oh, should I mention this to result in overlining many fish as well? ;)
Anyway now that I also worked hard on becoming the best teacher for fly casting that I can be, it's fair to summarize: I ran into the same fails quite often myself.
Working my way up in becoming a proper teacher in fishing though asked me to run down a significant road filling up my tool box with a lot of strategies matching all my students as good as possible.
Hopefully I could provoke some of you fine casting experts think even further outside the great old fly casting box. Oh, and please don't take me too serious. I am nowhere near raising my finger here, because I too have to learn a hell lot more! ;)
Besides all this I did really well. Simply my clients and I caught a lot of fine pike during the past 8 weeks.
Hopefully you are having a great fly fishing week as well.
All my best
Some pictures of the last days as always...
