Casting Practice - 40 feet in 4 seconds

I’ve always been a fan of Dave Hughes and have a ton of his books in my library. I’ve got one of them that I highlighted as I read it and he talks about the benefits of carefully and stealthily moving in position to make a shorter more accurate cast. This has stuck with me throughout my fishing career. I’ve never been a long distance caster and probably never will. So long to bone fishing.

If you can deliver a 40 foot cast when Mr. Trout raises his head to have a snack and put it on his nose you will be successful. Here is a drill to make you more accurate with you're presentation delivery.

Set Up

I set up a place on my lawn to do this drill and made 8 hoops that are 4 foot diameter, out of 1" diameter poly water pipe. I bought straight PVC connectors to join the hoops. Cut the pipe to lenght, pressed them together and was ready to go in about 30 minutes.

This drill is to hone these skills.

The Drill

(1) Find a nice grass area with a friend and lay out a course with targets. Take turns with this drill

(2) Place ten targets at a distance of 40 feet from a fixed casting position that are numbers 1 through 10. You can make 4 foot diameter hoops pretty easily out of inexpensive poly sprinkler pipe, sort of a homemade hula hoop.

(3) Have your partner call out random numbers.

(4) You have 4 seconds and one cast to put your fly within 2 feet of the target.

(5) Not fast enough, no good. Not close enough, no good.

Remember – Your cast doesn’t have to be long, it has to be on time and accurate.

Work on this and your casting accuracy will definitely improve. Once you think you've got it down and a reach cast on your delivery. Then a reach wiggle. You get the picture.

Have some fun with it!