Casting with a weighted fly

Casting with weighted flies can be hazardous to your health. Often called a “chuck and duck” method, it takes a different set of skills from dry fly fishing.

The first tip to keep in mind when casting weighted flies is to cast with an “open loop”. This means slowing down the casting stroke and having more patience in your casting.

Also, when casting in windy conditions, care must be taken to control the flight of the weighted fly. A weighted fly can cause serious injury by becoming embedded in your scalp or body. Always wear protective eye-wear when casting to protect your eyes.

You will need to modify your casting considerably when casting weighted flies. Try to minimize your false casting. A good bet is to just “load” the rod and “shoot” the fly, keeping to a minimum of false casting. You will find it more difficult to use a roll cast. It can be done, but will require perfect technique and more energy to accomplish.

For short range casting on moving water, you can load the rod by letting your fly drift past you and letting the downstream current load the rod. You can flip the line upstream against the downstream force that is being exerted on the rod. This will use the stored energy in the rod to propel the fly upstream with no false casting.

For longer casts, you will have to false cast, but never false cast more than necessary to load the rod for the appropriate distance. You can use the “double haul” technique to increase line speed and “shoot” the line to gain distance and minimize false casting.

See another article I have posted on Helium.com that explains the double haul in detail.

Weight flies such as nymphs and streamers must have the weight necessary to get down to the the depth where the fish are holding. It is a safe bet that 90% of the time, fish are feeding near the bottom of the stream. You will catch more and bigger fish using weighted flies. The weight can be incorporated into the fly by wrapping lead wire around the hook and the tying the fly a usual. an alternate method is to tie the fly without weight and adding a split shot of the appropriate size about 6″ above the fly on the tippet.

I like the split shot method because it allows the weight to tick along the bottom and the fly to float a few inches above it. You will also get fewer hang-ups on debris on the bottom. You will lose flies fishing weight flies on or near the bottom, but if you’re not losing some flies, you will not catch as many fish.

I love seeing a trout take a dry fly. It is the ultimate in fly fishing, but you’ll find that when fish are not actively feeding on top, you’ll take more and bigger trout on weighted nymphs and streamers.

Weighted flies require specific casting skills that are different from dry fly casting, but it is well worth the effort to develop these skills.

“Chuck and duck” is definitely worth the risk.