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 his is your time of year: your vacation. You're on the flats,
fly rod in hand, finally. The tarpon is sixty feet away.
Something electric--perhaps a primitive instinct--surges through
you, turning on your long-held dream of hitting the fly-fishing
grand slam. You lift the line off the water, cast back, then
forward. The wind howls, and in your mind you hear a coyote, but
then you remember: you're nowhere near the woods.
Over the water
you see your beautifully shaped, but somewhat wide, loop blown
out of shape. Your line crashes down, well short of your quest.
Reality left hooks your dream. Your guide says, "Use this."
He holds a spinning rod. You think, Isn't a spinning rod
cheating? What will I tell my friends? That I played it safe and
stopped at third base? I'm supposed to be a fly fisher, for
better or worse, aren't I?
Yes. Then why not for the better? I ask. Why not learn the
double haul and how to turn your casting loops into tight,
wind-piercing-like arrows?
It's easier than you think.
LET ME EXPLAIN. I'll begin by asking: what is a haul?
Simply put, it is casting a fly rod with one hand and
simultaneously pulling down the line with our other hand, and
increasing the line tension on the rod tip, and therefore fully
bending (loading) the rod so that when we abruptly stop the cast,
the rod tip recoils faster and across a longer arc.
To take this definition even further: The haul is, in a
sense, a reflection of our power snap.
And what is a power snap?
I'll define it as the second part of the casting stroke. In
the first part, the loading move, we slowly accelerate the rod.
In the second part, the power snap, we rapidly increase
acceleration, reaching maximum speed at the end of our casting
stroke.
Let me digress: It is a well-known principal of fly casting
that if we want to increase the length of our cast, we must also
increase the length and acceleration of our loading move, and
also of our haul.
(If you ever watch a long-distance, tournament fly caster
you'll see that during his or her power snap they move their
hauling hand faster and longer than their rod hand.)
HOW LONG AND FAST? The more line we're casting--usually
at least 35 feet--and/or the heavier our fly, the longer and faster
we must haul. If we properly accelerate our cast but our line
forms a wide loop, we hauled too slowly. If our line forms a
tailing loop, we hauled too quickly or too early.
To be more specific: When false casting, we'll finish most
of our downward, back cast hauls with our line hand pointing to
about eight o'clock. If we want to increase the length of our
back cast haul we'll have to haul at a steeper angle, and finish
the haul with our line hand pointing to about six o'clock.
On most of our downward, forward-cast hauls we'll finish
with our line hand pointing to about seven o'clock. On our
presentation casts, we'll accelerate our haul as fast as
possible, and finish with our line hand behind our front thigh.
To help increase my presentation-cast acceleration, I like
to pretend that, instead of hauling, I'm holding a football
upside down and throwing it behind me as far as I can.
But what about those tailing loops? To help prevent hauling
too early, we must begin our downward haul and power snap at the
same time. So during our back-cast, loading move we must keep our
line hand level with our rod hand and move both backwards. (This
will seem difficult at first, but with a little practice it will
become second nature.) During our forward-cast, loading move we
must move both hands forward.
Next, we begin our power snap and downward haul, rapidly
increasing acceleration, then snapping our hauling hand down.
Finally we stop our haul and our fly rod.
(To help me do this, I like to visualize a loose rope
connecting my rod and line hands. When I stop my rod I imagine
the rope completely tightening and stopping my line hand.)
But what if we continue our haul after we stop the rod?
We'll make it very difficult to execute our upward haul
without adding slack.
(More about the upward haul below.)
So now you have it: the basics of the long, downward haul.
WHAT WENT WRONG? Probably when we executed our
upward haul and gave line back.
As soon as we finish our long, downward haul we must
immediately give line back at the same speed the line is
unrolling. If we give line back too quickly--sometimes to
compensate for stopping our downward haul too late--and we don't
feel tension on the line, we'll add slack and weaken our cast.
But supposing we give line back too slowly, and don't get
our line hand up to our rod hand before we begin our next cast?
We'll probably commit one of two serious, casting defects:
1. We begin our cast by moving our rod hand before or faster than
we move our line hand, and therefore add line slack between our
hands and decrease the line-tension on the rod tip. The result:
the rod doesn't fully load, and our cast is under powered and
maybe even collapses. Oh, the embarrassment! 2. We begin the cast
with our line hand below our rod hand, and we manage to move both
hands in-sync; but because we started our haul with our line hand
too low, we run out of hauling room. Again our cast collapses.
To help get our line hand up to our rod hand, it's important
to remember that if we shoot line, we should simultaneously slide
our line hand upward.
If we finish our upward haul level with our casting hand,
but start our next cast and still add line slack between our
hands, we should try varying the speed of our cast and/or our
haul. For example, slow down our haul and speed up our cast, or
speed up our haul and slow down our cast.
If we're false casting into the wind and we cannot execute
our upward hauls without adding slack, we should increase the
acceleration of our downward hauls but decrease their length.
This may appear to be a contradiction, but it isn't if we begin
our haul later in the casting stroke, after we begin our power
snap.
GETTING THE LINE TANGLED AROUND THE ROD BUTT. This
is a common problem when executing a long, upward haul. To solve
this we should begin our upward haul by moving our line hand up and
away from our body.
FINALLY THE REAL SECRET. To become a great hauler practice
throwing a ball with your hauling hand.
In closing, for as long as we fish we'll probably wish for
less wind and closer fish, but now we won't have to wish as much,
because in our double haul we'll thankfully see its defects: wide
loops, tailing loops: loops that reflect cures and help us become
our own hauling doctors; so the next time we're on the flats and
see a tarpon we'll round third and head for home.
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