Fly Casting Class

When I was 8 or 10, in the mid nineteen sixties, my father began to teach me how to flycast in earnest. My dad didn’t use a metronome as the father of the main character in “A River Runs Through It” did to keep count when casting, rather, my dad counted out loud.  “One,” short pause, “Two,” short pause, “One,” short pause, “Two.”  One for the forward cast, then the short pause for the line to move forward and Two for the back cast and the short pause for it to return and so on, back and forth.  The length of the pause is determined by the amount of line out from the rod tip.  The more line out the slower the count, the less line the quicker.  I remember it so clearly.  So well, in fact, that when I cast today it cants still, quietly, in the back of my mind.  When I go too fast and line piles up in the air I hear my father say so and hear him say, “Slow down!”  I smile, usually, though sometimes I do get frustrated with myself and wonder how Dad had the patience for me.

We usually practiced in the front yard.  My Aunt and Uncle lived next door and we had no fence between us so I had a respectable area in which to play.  The trees that had been planted were still small as the neighbourhood was relatively new at that time.  Other kids used to laugh and make fun of me as they passed.  I sometimes had things said at school about me and flycasting practices with my dad.  That was all fine, and I bared it quietly, as I really wanted to catch fish on the fly like my dad did and leave my spinning/bait rod at home.  During practice I used his cane rod he had brought from the old country, the very one I would later break the tip of by absentmindedly walking it straight into a tree.  It now sits proudly in my rod cabinet.

Once I reasonably had the timing of casting figured out, it became time to learn distance and targeting.  Dad cut off a two-foot length of spare garden hose and fashioned a plug from wood with which he could make a ring of the hose by sticking both ends onto the plug.  This ring was to represent a rise form that you see on a body of water when a fish slurps food from the surface.  He would then make me stand in front of him and close my eyes.   He would throw the ring into some part of the yard, then have me open my eyes and would hold up two or three or four fingers as a sign as to how many false casts I was allowed before I put my fly in the ring.  I then would turn around, visually locate the ring and began casting, ending finally with the attempt, on the last cast allowed, to hit the ring with the piece of yarn tied on the end of the line. 

Sometimes Dad was mischievous and would throw the ring under a tree, or beside the hedge or along the rock garden making me have to cast sideways or even left handed.  This practice, to this day, has enabled me to be able to throw a fly virtually anywhere, at any distance, without even thinking, to exactly the spot I want.  While it amazes me quite often, to be honest, this sometimes frightens me when I think how automatic it has become. 

I think, over the years, my father has taught me everything he knows about fly-fishing.  In retrospect it has been somewhat like military training; you know, get to know your enemy and all that.  Although in this case it has been a quarry not an enemy, but I do think the training would be useful in both ideas.  I have been taught in the subtlties and habits of trout, where they rest, where they feed, what they like and don’t like.  Each variety with its own particular quirks; Browns like it slow and dark, Rainbows out in the feeding lanes during the heat of the day, Cutthroats in the bubbles of the faster current – the faster the better.  With everything but camo paint on my face we have stealthily crept up to many likely spots.  I have consistently been warned that I only have the one chance.  I had to look around me for possible snags, searching for that one window in the trees that would allow a back cast.  Or have had to creep slowly and down low in the open grass being blown by the morning breezes to keep my shadow from the water. 

Boot camp in the front yard had trained me for that one quick, effortless and on target cast, no matter the distance or the surrounding vegetation. Roll casts, single line haul and double, bow and arrow, flicks and the dead drift all were taught and learned.  I am amazed to this day that even if I have not held a rod for 6 months or better, I can still gauge the far bank with surprising accuracy, I can hit a rising fish in one, two or three false casts depending on distance, wind and backcast room.  I can also now do what I once thought was magical by my father, point to a spot in the water and say,  “There. He’s right there.”  And then put the fly spot on.  Thanks Dad.