Low elbow style / "snap cast"

I would add one comment to the side arm casting that I think will add to what Lefty & Gordy have said. This is something that I have had to teach myself along with all my students. (I teach both methods vertical and sidearm to all my students, because in real fishing situations they will need them.)

In simple terms during a vertical cast the rod tip travels in a straight line on a path parallel to your line of sight to the target. All pretty closely aligned ..

Now casting side arm with at 9'rod moves your straight line path 9' away from your eye's line of sight to the target. So you must accommodate for the offset . I tell my students to aim from the rod tip. get your mind's eye up to the tip..

Students learning both methods will typically cast loops sidearm fine and then present across their body to the target and that is why the line is curving to the left for a right handed caster. the line/ rod tip path is not in line with the target.

Solution turn your body so that the line/tip path is in line with the target 180 degrees on the backcast etc..

(This is also a sidearm over rotation(off the SLP) and will open up even the best loops.)

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Good advice. This is a good way to maintain accuracy while using the low elbow-on-the-shelf way of casting. Accomplished casters who use this style, intuitively do it this way without necessarily thinking it through the way you did.

One reason among many for using this low elbow casting style with the rod tip remaining below the angler's shoulder when fishing for permit is that you can make accurate casts at the needed distance without raising your rod tip anywhere near vertical. If you do bring your rod up in the air, the game is over before you even make the presentation cast because the wary permit will see it and leave the scene in a panic run. If it is very windy, the permit won't be so super spooky, but I still use that Lefty style because it works much better for me for handling the wind.

My father (Pop Hill) took it to extremes. On a windless day on a shallow flat with a "severe clear" sky, the fish were very nervous. He would lie prone on the flat and make his cast with a rod plane so low and horizontal that the casting plane was inches above the water.

I show the student my default style which is low elbow-on-the-"shelf", off horizontal rod plane, then have them try other methods as we advance. As we progress, I point out the various situations when one style will suit the fishing circumstance of the moment better than others.

Most advanced instructors use horizontal rod plane casting at various points so the student can see both back cast and forward cast loops literally on the ground and just above a line stretched taught. (Lefty showed that to me years ago. Floyd Franke used it by stretching a hi-viz fly line out over which the student cast. Joan Wulff used paper plates stuck in the ground with nails at the end of a taught line, etc., etc.)

When coaching for short range pin-point accuracy, I find that I and most students do better with an elbow forward, vertical rod plane style. Reason: With this method, the eye/target line overlaps the hand/target line. With a horizontal rod plane, you have an eye/target line and a rod tip/target line the base of which is one rod length away. (See accuracy triangle, p. 14., Joan Wulff's FLY-CASTING ACCURACY.)

Some strong, atheletic distance competiton casters such as Steve Rajeff, prefer the elbow forward, vertical rod plane style. One reason is that they can apply tremendous power while still maintaining good tracking that way.

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Yesterday, I sent this note from Ally Gowans, but I didn't answer his first question. Here it is with my answer:

Not true (hope that we are talking about the same move)! However your statement does acknowledge that the Snap movement is a relative of the straight line (overhead etc) casts, only here the rod tip is made to form loop differently so the tip scribes the desired loop size, shape and direction and then there is a stop; end of cast. After the stop you can of course produce different mends (line layouts) just like you can after any cast. In the instance of a snap type cast though the mend tends to be the purpose and the following cast is usually a roll cast. The snap can also be used to lift (aerialise) line and in this case the pause would be just sufficient to organise the line in the air and proceed with a forward cast. Sometimes used by dry fly fishers with a short line. Incidentally the snap done quickly is a great way of knocking the water out of a fly!

What I meant was that when making this snap cast (not the snap-T of the Spey cast) while you do have a pause, it need not be related in time to the length of the line carried.

The snap cast to which I refer is this one: I make a standard straight line overhead cast. Sometime before the fly and leader land, I move my rod tip slowly back a bit and then quickly make a second cast beneath the loop of the first. The fly line and fly snap back behind me and the fly lands back there. I can make that snap move early or late (admittedly within certain limits.)

It is really a trick cast first shown to me by Floyd Dean. He has become really expert at this to the point that he can snap the fly back to either side and place it in a target ! (Wows the troops at fly shows.)

I'll add this comment: Rarely, I'll make a cast to a bonefish and spook him while wading the flat. If I see another fish close behind me, I'll make a slow pickup and before it is complete, I'll snap a cast placing a loop under the line being picked up. This will snap back behind me and present to the fish there. By doing this, I don't get my rod up and behind me which, if done, will likely result in spooking the second fish. G.

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I agree wholeheartedly with your statement: One can use different styles of casting for each family of casts, as I see it.

Ally Gowans, Simon Gawesworth and Scott MacKenzie all have different styles of spey casting, but no one would say that any of them are not effective at what they do.

One simple way that I look at style is that it helps me, when I go to a river, to identify my friends who are already fishing, by watching them cast. I can often tell who is fishing at a distance, not by how they look, but by how they cast.

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