A good fly-casting instructor will teach you that, when false casting, you should begin each cast just before the previous cast has unrolled completely. This allows you to bring the leader and fly through a smooth change of direction, and it keeps the fly line airborne.

However, I see many casters who still do this even when they have to deliver the fly a significant distance: They begin their final forward cast before their back cast has finished unrolling. If your timing is pretty good, and you don’t begin your stroke too soon, you can still deliver a fairly long line this way (provided everything else about the cast is good). Keep in mind, though, that any line that hasn’t unrolled in a cast amounts to slack (Figure 1). You must remove all the slack in the fly line before you can begin to load the rod. If you move the rod tip forward even 3 inches before the rod begins to load, that’s 3 inches you’ve stolen from your casting arc (Figure 2). If you’re only making a short cast and don’t have to shoot line to deliver the fly, it doesn’t make much difference whether or not you allow your final back cast to unroll completely. Casting distance, however, means casting efficiently. Allowing your final back cast to straighten completely gives you the most efficient forward stroke possible.

Letting your final back cast straighten completely does something else that’s very important. The force of the unrolling line, when it straightens, will pull the rod tip into a slight bend; that is, the rod will be "pre-loaded" on the forward stroke. Remember that the deeper the rod is loaded, the more power there will be in the delivery. Letting your final back cast straighten completely gives your cast more distance and power with no additional effort.

To make this work, your timing must be good. You’ll feel a subtle tug on the rod tip as your back cast straightens, and for a split second you’ll experience the feeling of the airborne fly line stretched taut against the rod tip, flexing it backward slightly. You must begin the forward stroke at this instant. If you wait even a fraction of a second after you feel the tug, the pre-load will vanish and your line will lose its tautness and begin to fall. A good caster may still be able to deliver the fly, but such a cast will never fulfill its distance potential. For your longest, most powerful delivery, your forward stroke will begin with the fly line straight behind you and the rod already bent.

Many casters shoot line on both their back cast and forward cast to lengthen the amount of line they have outside the rod tip. But shooting line during the casting sequence serves another very important function that most fly-fishers overlook.

When you false cast a constant length of line, the head of the fly line remains anchored at the rod tip. The fly line is unrolling in an open-ended loop, but the head of the fly line isn’t actually moving. When you shoot line, you set the head of the fly line in motion. The head of the fly line takes on momentum. When you shoot a few feet of line on your final back cast and then stop it suddenly by trapping the line in your line hand, just as the line straightens behind you, the momentum of the fly line moving backward is going to pull the rod tip into a significant pre-load (Figure 3). The tug you’ll feel on the rod tip will be much stronger than when you didn’t shoot line. Shooting line on your final back cast is analogous to taking your 9-weight rod, loading it with an 11- or 12-weight line, and then shooting a 9-weight line on the delivery. Shooting line on your final back cast gives you all the advantages of overlining your rod and none of the disadvantages. It allows you to harness the momentum of the backward-moving fly line and put that force into your forward cast. Shooting line on your final back cast adds a significant amount of power to your delivery--but most important, it requires no additional effort.

A haul is simply a pull on the fly line during the casting stroke. Pulling fly line through the guides during the casting stroke lets you pull harder against the fly line’s resistance (inertia) and bend the rod a bit deeper than you could bend it with the casting stroke alone. This deeper load on the rod translates to more power in the cast with no more effort from your rod arm.

This is the great benefit of hauling that everyone overlooks: Hauling allows you to make all casts with less effort. To hold 40 feet of line in the air, you need a fairly long casting stroke, and the entire burden of loading the rod falls to your rod arm. Hauling divides the work of loading the rod between both of your arms and reduces the length of the casting stroke. Hauling lets you deliver a longer, more powerful cast--but most important, it allows you to do it with less effort.

The other major benefit of hauling that most casters overlook is that hauling allows you to form a tighter loop than you could form with the casting stroke alone. Remember that a tight loop is the most efficient way to transfer the rod’s energy toward the target: The tighter the loop you form, the farther and faster your cast will travel. Form a tighter loop and you’ll automatically add distance and power to your cast. I strongly suspect that most of the extra distance we get from hauling comes simply from forming a tighter loop. Also, tight loops are less wind-resistant than wide loops, and are critical when you have to drive the fly through the wind.

For example, during the back cast, your rod hand and line hand would move together, in the same direction, during the first stage of acceleration (what Joan Wulff calls the "loading move"). Then, during the second stage of the stroke, your rod hand and line accelerate in opposite directions. The back-cast stroke and haul end abruptly, and precisely at the same instant. Then, while the loop of fly line is unrolling behind you, the line hand moves toward the first stripping guide to give back line at the same speed that the unrolling cast wants to take it; the line hand finishes at a position near the reel. For the forward cast, the rod hand and line hand move forward together during the first stage of acceleration (loading move). Then, during the final stage of acceleration (power snap) the rod hand continues forward to complete the casting stroke while the line hand accelerates toward your thigh to execute the forward-cast haul.

I, along with a number of other casters I’ve noted, practice a variation of the double haul that Joan Wulff has termed slide loading. Rather than the line hand’s simply moving toward the rod hand to give back line while the back cast is unrolling, both the rod hand and line hand move toward each other. That is, the rod hand starts forward through the loading move while the line hand is still giving back line. As strange as it seems, during the loading-move phase of the stroke there is no actual load on the rod. When the rod hand and line hand meet and the back cast straightens, the rod loads instantly. At this point, the rod hand is positioned to execute the power snap. The power snap and haul complete the loading of the rod.

Slide loading offers several advantages over the traditional double haul, including a more rhythmic cadence and perfect timing. I think all good fly-casters eventually fall into slide loading on their own.

Begin with the head of the fly line (I recommend a fly line with a maximum head length of about 43 feet) just outside the rod tip. After you complete your final back cast and haul, release the line trapped in your line hand to shoot running line through a "C" formed by your index finger, middle finger, and thumb. As your back cast unrolls, and running line is shooting through your fingers, let your rod tip drift backward to affect a longer forward casting arc. However, when you begin your forward stroke, you should continue to shoot running line through the fingers of your line hand. That is, the rod tip slides forward along the fly line with no load (slide loading). Your rod hand and line hand will be moving toward each other. When your hands come together, trap the running line (of which you’ve shot as much as 10 feet) with your line hand. When you trap the running line, the momentum of the rod tip moving forward coming against the momentum of the fly line shooting backward is going to pull the rod into a very abrupt, very powerful load. The rod loads instantly, rather than gradually, as it would on a conventional casting stroke. From here your hands will begin to move away from each other: Your rod hand moves forward to complete the forward casting stroke, and your line hand moves down toward your thigh to make the haul. The completion of the forward stroke and haul puts an even greater load on the rod. The rod is now loaded deeper than you could have achieved with hauling alone. This maximum load translates to phenomenal speed and power added to your cast.

The entire sequence (which was taken from Saltwater Fly-Casting: 10 Steps to Distance and Power) is illustrated in Figures 4 through 7. Note the tremendous load put on the rod between Figures 5 and 6. This was accomplished primarily through pre-loading the rod, as you can see that the line hand has only just begun to execute the haul.

Figure 4	Figure 5
Figure 6	Figure 7

This sequence is among the master class of fly-casting techniques. To execute it, your casting fundamentals must be solid. Once you’ve refined your basic casting stroke, however, it will allow you to deliver a fly 100 feet with little more effort than you would use to cast 40.

Keep in mind that the techniques we’ve explored in this article are not just to help you shoot an entire fly line. They’re techniques you can use to make all of your casts with less effort.

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George Roberts’ video fly-casting program, Saltwater Fly-Casting: 10 Steps to Distance and Power, is available direct through White Mouse Productions: http://www.whitemouseflyfishing.com