My friend, and fellow casting geek, Tomonori “Bill” Higashi, e-mailed me a few months back asking if I had a good mo-cap sequence showing SLP (that would the “Straight Line Path” of the rod tip during a cast, which is actually only straight for part of the cast, and then only for casts where it [...]

I occasionally get e-mails asking about roll and Spey casting on grass, and ways in which to make land-bound practice more useful. What follows is an almost-verbatim snip from my Nature of Fly Casting book about one potential aid in grass-casting. – – – – – – – – – - It can be difficult [...]

A fly in-the-hand and a fly on-the-water may be two different things (at least to the fish). Below are a few shots showing a real Hexagenia mayfly dun just outside the edge of the fish’s window (photo taken via a slant tank), and the insect just inside the fish’s window (the brown area outside the window is [...]

I originally wrote this for the Federation of Fly Fishers’ newsletter, “The Loop.” Figured it couldn’t hurt to post it here, too. – – – – – – – – – - In the U.S. leader and tippet material diameters are typically measured in thousandths of an inch, with tippets also given an additional “X” [...]

[ Javascript required to view QuickTime movie, please turn it on and refresh this page ] While a link to this DVD already appears over in the sidebar, I thought that I would eat some bandwidth and post a short QuickTime clip—slightly modified—from the video. If you happen to be looking for the new-wave in [...]

FF&W Expeditions™ is now booking spots for a select few anglers who have what it takes to meet the challenge of the puffer. We recommend appropriate angling gear (flip-flops are a good start), and specialty flies such as a pink Bogglehead (shown), or a size 12 Hare’s Ear. After years of research and the redemption [...]

While this link was already posted in a comment about the Corkscrew Curve Cast, I though that I would make it a post, as well, since it is a serious example of the skill. How far can one cast a Corkscrew Curve? Have a watch and find out (from Lasse Karlsson). Note also that Lasse [...]

For those who attended the Bend seminar last week, here is the trout leader post/page that I referenced during the leader-building session. I figure that it is easier to just re-post it so you don’t have to dig around the blog. Put those three-turn Surgeon’s Knots to good use… – – – – – – [...]

I’ve been exchanging a few e-mails about various aspects of casting with Dr. Server Sadik, who is both an engineering prof at Montana State University and part of the original MSU/FCI motion-capture crew from back in 2004. In our back-and-forth, Server mentioned that he had some good SLP still shots from that original mo-cap session. [...]

Continuing the movie theme as of late, I wanted to point FF&W readers to a full collection of 500 frame-per-second fly-casting videos (hosted on Revver.com). Actually, if you’ve been reading this blog, you may have already seen these, but I figure that it never hurts to make them obvious. These videos are the result of [...]

Few things in fly casting are as misunderstood as the concept of the “straight line path” (known in casting-geek-speak as “SLP”) of the rod tip during the cast. Indeed, overly simplified or overly optimized diagrams of SLP have been wreaking havoc on casters’ imaginations for decades. While Possessing SLP is often thought of as a good thing for [...]

Okay, enough of the “re-loading” and “new stuff soon” posts—here is some actual new stuff (while chunks of this article have appeared in various forms elsewhere, they have not appeared at FF&W, so I’m going to call this “new”). Actually some of the following includes excerpts from the book, Presentation (penned by my father), so [...]