FNG needs some help

[mountedbowman]

I recently moved to the NWT and was gifted a beautiful 8 weight rod from a friend to fish Northern pike up here. I have no fly fishing experience and so far I haven't found any locals who fly fish up here to get some help from.

I am having problems getting the large streamers to go any distance. Just curious if anyone knows of good teaching forum to check online or has any tips.

When practicing with my grass leader I can easily get 50 to 60 feet but when I try to use a streamer I can only get it about 20. Is this because I am not throwing it hard enough or is it something else.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

The FNG

[SamSteele]

I'm by no means an expert, but is your leader heavy enough to turn over a big fly?


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[dangerranger5143]

I just started fly fishing this year. I was terrible at casting to start and I am no expert by any means now. I had a fishing buddy run me through some basics. My biggest issue was casting too fast. Try slowing your arm movements down. Don't let your arms pass the 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock positions. Use a fast snap like motion and let your line go as far out as possible in front and behind you to "load" your line. It works off of momentum of the line. Took me a lot of practice and concentration to get to where I'm at. Hope this makes sense.

DR

[goldscud]

Make sure your line is fully straight behind you on the backcast. This will allow your rod to get loaded for the forward stroke. It takes a pause once you stop the rod for the line to stretch out behind you. This pause increases in time as more line is used

[Mr Flyguy]

What kind of line are you using? I'm using a Rio Pike/Musky 8wt F/I to punch out the big bunny streamers.

[StoshYYC]

Check out the Orvis Fly Fishing Learning Center for all kinds of how to videos. Great resource library for anyone looking to get into fly fishing.

http://howtoflyfish.orvis.com/video-lessons

Cheers!

[kayaker]

The dedicated streamer lines help but the key with heavy flies is to slow down, the cadence is different. Let the rod load on the back cast and let it do the work as its intended to do. I find if you aren’t use to heavy flies it’s easy to have a rhythm that is too fast. You blow the loos wide open and the heavier flies flops round without being carried but the line. This is more pronounced than with a smaller, lighter fly. Give the back cast time to start loading the road, this helps shoot the line properly on the front cast. Learn to double haul too!

Lefty Kreh has a great video that shows how using the rod’s energy and enhancing that with a haul beats trying to speed up and muscle a cast to get distance.

[Pikebreath]

Originally Posted by kayaker

The dedicated streamer lines help but the key with heavy flies is to slow down, the cadence is different. Let the rod load on the back cast and let it do the work as its intended to do. I find if you aren’t use to heavy flies it’s easy to have a rhythm that is too fast. You blow the loos wide open and the heavier flies flops round without being carried but the line. This is more pronounced than with a smaller, lighter fly. Give the back cast time to start loading the road, this helps shoot the line properly on the front cast. Learn to double haul too!

Lefty Kreh has a great video that shows how using the rod’s energy and enhancing that with a haul beats trying to speed up and muscle a cast to get distance.

Yes, you must slow down and let the rod load down into the mid section for the bigger flies.

Some pike flies are so big and heavy, you may even consider going to a 9 or 10 wt rod to cast comfortably.

[MrDave]

The key to this, is the double haul cast. Look it up on YouTube. It increases the speed of the hook drastically.
The other trick I teach to avoid too much a movement, is put a rolled up newspaper in the armpit. If you drop it you are moving top much. Use the body to put the power in the rod, not the arm.
Good luck

[lds]

Also a little trick I learned from reds fly shop on YouTube which has excellent videos. Try holding further back on your grip for more power and higher up for more accuracy. Once I tried that it also helps along with a double haul which is the most important

[Okotokian]

Try casting on dry land sidearm. That way you can look back and forward and see how far your casting motion is actually going, and see the line coiling out straight and loading the rod. You can start to feel what a fully loaded rod feels like and how the range and timing of your cast affects the loop size. If you are like me, you sometimes try to cast forward before the line is straight back and loaded, and swing the rod in too great of an arc. If I'm not careful I think I'm stopping at 1:00 on the back cast and it's really more like 3:00.

here's a video of Lefty Kreh demonstrating this with a student. And Lefty is reputed to be one of the best casters around.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...7&&FORM=VDRVRV

Single and double haul will help distance but I think you have to be semi-competent at doing a basic cast first.