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will wading. The reason is simple. A boat drawing only a
few inches of water blends into the surface to a fish a few
yards away. Two feet sticking down and kicking up bottom dust
are hard to miss to that same fish. I was keyed into this
fact during one of my first redfishing trips aboard my sit-on-top
kayak when a redfish tailed up to the bow of my yak, put his
tail down, went under the yak, and then put his tail back
up and went on his merry way. I was so amazed I didn't even
bother to cast.
In order to better understand how to fly cast seated in a
kayak, it is crucial that you have a better understanding
of casting mechanics in general. All the wind knots, lackluster
distance and accuracy, and the annoying sound of the fly smacking
the water behind you are not the fault of the kayak and are
usually signs that there are problems in your everyday casting
that could be easily fixed. So, lets start with probably the
most universal kayak fly casting issue - hitting the water
on your back cast.
With your casting arm only a few feet above the surface of
the water you don't have much room to work with, so why be
hard on yourself? In order to make a lengthy cast, you have
to move the rod a given distance. If you don't get that rod
loaded and begin your casting stroke as soon as possible,
you will most likely "run out of room" causing your back cast
to end too far behind you and consequently, your line and/or
fly to smack the water behind you. So, before you ever begin
your cast, make everything easier on yourself by making sure
the tip of your fly rod is in or at the surface of the water
and move your casting arm a bit farther forward than you normally
would. Start your cast slowly and smoothly accelerate as your
line begins to leave the water. Now, when you stop the rod
on your back cast, it will be much earlier than before and
you will be less likely to send your line and fly towards
the waters surface.
Ian Slack stops the rod high on his
back cast to keep his line off the water and to make the most
of the cramped cockpit of the kayak.
But this may not solve the problem entirely.
Another possible culprit could be that your line is not straight
before you begin your cast or that you are picking up the
line off the water with way too much force causing shock waves
in your line as it unrolls off your rod. Either way, the slack
that is created from not having a straight line will rob you
of precious casting stroke once again making you have to move
your arm farther than you are able in this seated position.
If this is the case, you will most likely find yourself not
waiting for your back cast to straighten before you start
your forward cast, the logic here being that if you get it
all moving before it falls in the water it will somehow work.
The opposite happens, however, because by not allowing your
cast to straighten, you have just committed yourself to making
an even longer casting stroke! Always look for ways to remove
slack by having a straight fly line both in the air and on
the water. A fly line without slack means a much more effective
casting stroke.
Ian throws a nice "kayak cast" that
doesn't hit the water or cause tailing loops,
and, most importantly, unrolls smoothly to the target.
Now that you have removed slack and understand
the importance of having enough arm room to execute a given
cast, lets look at how your are forming your loops and aiming
your cast. Both of these tasks are accomplished by stopping
the rod on the end of the forward and back casts. The direction
you stop the rod is the direction the line will travel. This
is a very critical point and a thorough understanding of the
physics involved will allow you to make casts seated in your
kayak that you may not have even been able to make standing
up before. Obviously, we can draw the conclusion here that
if you want to cast a fly to a target than you need to stop
the rod tip when it is traveling toward that target, but your
ability to get the fly to its mark is also reliant on where
you stop the rod on your back cast. Try the following exercise
standing on grass: while false casting stop the rod down behind
you and down in front of you making the rod tip travel in
an arching path. You will notice that the size of your loop
increases and the length of your cast decreases. Now, begin
to stop your back cast and forward cast higher until they
stop in completely opposite directions from one another. Your
loops should start looking a little more like Lefty's and
your fly line should begin to tug at your line hand as it
straightens in the air. This is the "perfect" casting loop
that you have been striving for. But we are not done . . .
Now, begin stopping your back cast higher and higher while
maintaining a straight ahead forward cast. You should start
seeing your loop begin to close and those nasty "wind" knots
beginning to form. Having your rod tip travel in a less than
180 degree rod tip path is one common cause of wind knots.
But do you recall the arching rod tip path you made when you
stopped the tip down in front and behind you? After stopping
the rod very high on a back cast, make this arching forward
cast and look at the resultant loop. It should no longer be
closed and unroll in front of you like a "good" cast. There
will also not be any wind knots. Freshwater trout fisherman
call this cast a "Steeple Cast" and routinely employ it in
situations where there is not much room for a back cast. But
using this technique can also be very useful in areas where
you don't have much room to move your arm in an efficient
casting stroke - like a kayak!
For our "Kayak Cast", though, we don't need to send our back
cast straight up. Just aim it slightly higher than you typically
would and throw a slightly wider loop on the forward cast.
This "Kayak Cast" is not a powerful cast, but can be very
accurate once mastered and in the kayak will allow you to
be much more at ease casting while seated. If you need more
distance, you can easily add a double haul, but because
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