"Dave LaCourse" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 3 May 2008 14:53:39 -0700, "Bob Weinberger"
wrote:

No great feat that. I've done it with Peter steelheading in Ontario
with an 8 and 7 weight. But how do you originally get the line out
that far. Does not that require a false cast or two. Or, are you
letting line out on the downstream drift. At sometime during that
entire process, a falsecast seems inevitable.

No, no false casts required or even used. You need to understand that the
type of steelheading I'm referring to uses a wet fly swing, a "greased
line" presentation, or a "waking fly" presentation. None of these involve
casting back upstream, and all result in the line ending up directly
downstream of the caster at the end of the presentation (which wouldn't fit
the classic conception of a drift). To completly cover the water using one
of these methods the most common technique is a cast, swing, step
downstream, cast again, repeat routine. Upon starting at the top of the run,
before proceeding downstream for the cast, swing, step routine, the caster
makes a short cast (no false cast required), strips out a few feet of line
at the end of the swing, picks up the line and shoots out a slightly longer
cast. This is repeated from the same spot to cover the water until the cast
length is at the maximum that the caster feels comfortable with. Then a step
downstream & start of the css routine.

However, I seriously doubt that anyone can nymph effectively with 60' of
line out - nymphing is best done at relatively short range to maintain
good
drift control, so why even bring up casting such distances in regard to
nymphing?

High stick nymphing is less than 20 feet (as practiced by me with or
without an indicator). However, there are more than a few occasions
when I will cast 40, even 60 feet with a single nymph, piece of shot,
and a strike indicator, and catch fish *consistently*. Some of the
biggest landlocks I have taken on the Rapid River where by long-line
nymphing. There are more than a few holes on this river that require
a long cast if you are to fish them effectively. One spot in
particular requires a good 50-60 foot cast across two different speed
currents which means I am only going to get a few feet of drag free
drift no matter how hard I mend. But, the saving grace is that if I
do not get a take in those first few moments, there is a chance that I
will get one on the swing, and sometimes even on the retrieve. On
occasion I have felt the take without seeing it.

Dave

Although you may have a "nymph rig" on, I submit that the longer range
fishing you describe above (or at least 95% of it) is not nymphing as the
meaning of the term is generally accepted to be, but rather wet fly fishing.
At 50-60' especially with cross currents, you can't be sure that you get ANY
drag free drift, so you are essentially wetfly fishing with nymphs instead
of classic wet flys.
Even for those longer casts, a person rigged up as you describe is far
better off using water loading rather than false casting to get the line out
and reach the distance. The open looped slow line speed techniques
required to false cast such rigs without tangles are not all that good for
distance casting, and are next to impossible to execute effectively in the
presence of wind.

Bob Weinberger La Grande,OR.


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