Casting Heavy or Wind Resistant Flies, Multiple Flies, and Split Shot Rigs
- Jason G. Freund
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
We have all experienced some frustrations when trying to cast heavy flies such a Clouser Deep Minnow, wind-resistant flies like grasshopper imitations or poppers, and hopper/dropper or nymph/split shot rigs. Use your regular cast, and you are likely to throw your line into your fly rod or create one hell of a tangled mess. These rigs all require a little different approach to the cast.
My first suggestion is to use gear well suited for the purpose. This generally means a little heavier rod, a shorter and stouter leader, and a fairly aggressive weight forward tapered line. You can do it without this gear, but it does make it much easier. I also find a little bit longer rod is helpful. Loops are naturally a bit larger with longer rods - and much of what I'll write about is how to open up those loops without sacrificing too much distance (when that is a concern).
The Basic Principles
I will largely treat these setups as the same because they share a lot of similarities and make it so you have to cast differently. However, there are some differences in how these different setups affect fly casting. Below are the challenges of these different types of flies / rigs.
Heavy Flies cause a "kick" on your cast as the weight loads the rod differently compared to a lighter fly.
Wind resistant flies increase the drag on the fly line and slow your cast down.
Split shot or multiple beaded nymphs cause a hinging of the leader during the cast and the rig can collapse and tangle. And they can also cause a kick in the line.
Hopper-dropper rigs are generally similar to multiple beaded rigs, but add in a wind resistant dry fly for an added bit of challenge.
Indicator rigs are similar to hopper-dropper rigs in that they generally have a heavy fly and a wind resistant element (the indicator).
With any of these rigs, you will also find that your cast is going to be slower. You will have to pause a little longer on your false casts - which you should minimize to make casting easier with these flies or rigs. Timing is more critical than it is with a lighter, less wind resistant fly. The weight of the fly and/or its wind resistance will create added drag. This added weight will cause the rod to "kick", that is, you will feel the rod load very differently. Loading occurs "all at once" - that "kick" - rather than more gradually as it does with lighter flies and a lack of split shot.
The biggest change from our normal cast is that we need to open up that loop a little bit. Not enough to lose too much of the energy of the cast, but enough to prevent tailing loops. The other big change is that instead of that straight line path of the rod tip that is so important, we want to alter the planes of our casts to reduce the likelihood that our line or flies hit the rod. This is especially important when casting heavy flies and split shot that can cause your tip section to break if it is "crashed into".
The Belgian / Oval Cast
The Belgian or oval cast is a way to alter the path of your rod tip and timing of the cast. It is a constant motion cast, which is different from our normal pause on the back cast and on forward false casts. I don't know that anyone ever taught me the Belgian cast nor do I remember researching it; I, like many others, came to the idea independently. After hitting your rod tip a time or two or creating a hellacious tangle, you figure out that you need to change your cast to accommodate the weight and/or wind resistance.
The Belgian cast is a constant motion cast that is done in an oval path of the rod and its tip. Instead of accelerating to a stop, the cast is more fluid and continuous. The backcast occurs more to the side, even totally sidearm, and then the forward cast is "over the top", more like our typical cast. This means that the rod tip travels in an oval, rather than the more typical straight line path. This reduces the likelihood that the fly, leader, or line hit the fly rod as can happen with a more straight line path.
You should change this path - the size of the oval - depending upon what you are casting. A really heavy fly - say something with dumbbell eyes - will require a larger oval whereas a pair of small beadhead nymphs behind a small indicator will cast fine with a less exaggerated oval. This is where experience helps. The more you cast and think about casting these rigs, the better you will get at casting them.
As with all fly casting, you can practice and become better at casting these difficult to cast rigs. You can practice the Belgian cast on grass, however, dealing with weight or doing our next cast - the water load - might require water. One of the big differences with weighted flies is that your leader and maybe part of your fly line will be underwater. This means that your first backcast is a lot about pulling that fly, leader, and line out of the water. With a wind and water-resistant fly, water helps to load your rod to make a backcast (watch the Gunnar Brammer video above).
Water Haul / Water Loading
This leads us to the water haul or water loaded cast, which is helpful for dealing with heavy flies and/or wind resistant flies. It is very commonly used in indicator fishing. It minimizes or eliminates the backcast which helps prevent you from catching streamside vegetation. Some argue water loading is not really fly casting, I don't find it to be much fun, but it does work.
Water loading or the water haul are ways to use the pressure of water against the fly and line to help bend (load) the rod, so a forward cast can be made. There are elements of the roll cast in water loading, which is not surprising as roll casting also uses water tension to load the rod. The big differences is that the line is generally downstream of you in water loading compared to it being upstream of you with a roll cast.
The general mechanics of a water load cast are to have the line downstream, 180 degrees(ish) from the target to eliminate slack line and begin to load (bend) the rod. Once this energy is in the rod, a slow, deliberate lift further loads the rod, and then the forward cast begins in one smooth motion. You can add a more energy and thus distance to this cast by incorporating a haul - as you would in a double haul.
The water load can be used with dry flies when false casts might give away the angler or when there is exactly one shot to cast at a fish. I remember "guiding" for a youth event and having a teenager catch the fish of the day on a water load cast over a barbed wire fence. I knew we only had one shot at the fish. We stripped out the right amount of line - loading helps take the guess work involved in false casting out of the equation - and he sent one cast upstream. The fish came up and hit the caddis, and he landed a brown that was about 18 inches.
Putting it All Together
These casts are useful, hell, necessary when casting those difficult to cast flies and rigs. With wind resistant flies, I am always double hauling to increase line speed to overcome the drag that the fly creates. With heavy flies, I am using a Belgian cast to help reduce tangles. Last, I might use that water haul, if I really have to...
As I have already mentioned, practice and experience are key in becoming better at dealing with the challenges these flies and rigs create. The Belgian cast can be practiced on grass, the water load/haul requires water. There are also things that you can work on while fishing. These techniques should help you not only with trout fishing, but much of warmwater fishing. Smallmouth Bass and musky on rivers, in particular, is often about casting wind resistant and/or heavy flies. And these principles are useful when fishing sinking lines and leaders, as many anglers are using for musky or streamers for bass and large trout.