Long tapered leaders

"Lazarus Cooke" wrote


Many years ago I had casting lessons from the Hardy professional, Andy
Murray. One of the things he taught me for dryfly upstream casting on
glassy water is to give your rod a good sideways wiggle as the line is
flying out. If you get the timing right on this it will lay your tippet
in a zig-zag pattern that will straighten as the stream pulls at it,
but will leave the fly un-dragged.



casting slack ... in the wiggle cast you mention, or various pile casts ...
is a key to difficult dry fly waters ( ones with complex currents over weeds
and such )



The ability to pile up the tippet to absorb some 'drag' greatly increases
success on some waters but like all this stuff we must practice ... try to
put the fly on the pie plate in the yard with lots of tippet slack .. then
without same. Add learning to throw curves around obstacles part way to
the plate and/ or at the end. It's possible to throw slack into the
middle of the line with the leader still turning over well also etc.

One cast I learned a few years back is useful if emerging weeds are between
you and the fish, but he is just inches on the other side. The weeds keep
the line/ leader from flowing downstream and if you cast normally ( turned
over leader ) drag is instant. Try forcing a cast HARD and fast right into
the weeds ... they will absorb the force keeping the 'spat' from scaring our
prey and the end of the tippet will travel a little farther, coming down
well after the line ( remember you cast like you were trying to bury the
line ) in a nasty pile just past the weeds ... viola, fish on ( learned this
on Hot Creek where such weeds are common and wading to get a better angle,
highly frowned upon )

This slack where it helps stuff is partly leader construction, but mainly
just 'bad casting' ... on purpose