(Fishing and casting information)
FlyLife, Issue 15 by Rob Sloane

Thanks Rob. No, good casters don't necessarily make better fishermen. Good fishermen often have mediocre casting skills but their success can often be attributed to above average hunting ability. I'm sure you know what I mean by that. When you meet another fisherman on a stream or lake-edge you can just sense if he is a natural hunter. However when you combine a good fishermen with a good caster you have an exceptional fisherman and this is rare. In my case, I probably make up for a little lack in the hunter characteristics, with my casting skills.

Fly Casting competitions can be likened to rifle shooting or archery. It is purely a sport where our ability is pitted against our competitors. There are only targets and tape measures to decide the results. For me the thrill of it seems to be in measuring my ability against others - win, lose or draw. For others it is in the personal satisfaction that they gain as they constantly improve on their personal bests and isn't this really what life is about striving to do something better.

Fly fishing competitions are a completely different story. It is clearly not directly a man against man contest. We pit ourselves against the fish. To be successful you need to consistently catch fish in all the given circumstances. To do well you need to have good hunting instincts and work (and I mean work) with greater efficiency than anyone else. I guess this is where I have some advantages over others. While I may only fish just a handful of days each season (as a guide I don't fish) I get to make the strategic decisions relating to how my client fishes during the day. A good guide, or good competition fisherman, works out how to catch the fish more quickly than anyone else. This is the efficiency I talk about. Anyone can catch the easy fish on easy days, although these days are rare, but the good fishermen work out how to catch the difficult fish on difficult days. If there is one thing that guiding and competition angling has taught me over the past five years, it is that successful fly fishing is about EFFICIENCY. Efficient boat handling, efficient wading, efficient covering of the water, efficient covering of the depth, efficient visual skills, and above all else efficient casting skills no tangles, no wind knots, quick accurate deliveries etc. Get the point.

No, I don't find the fishing competitions stimulating at all. I'd much rather a casting competition any day. However, I believe our involvement in these competitions is very important to our business. We hang a shingle up saying we are fishing guides, and I want our team of guides to be the best in the business. We need to be accountable, as each day there are more and more shonky operators in this field.

I firmly believe we should put our reputations on the line in these fishing and casting competitions each year and if we do well (as we have done) we are in demand, for obvious reasons.

Another great thing about our involvement in competition fishing is that we get to know of new techniques and developments as they happen. Sometimes we lead the way as was the case with loch style fishing, or more commonly we learn from our competitors. During a fishing competition it is every man for himself but afterwards the camaraderie and friendship is fantastic, as you would expect with a bunch of fishermen when they get together. Secret flies are swapped and new techniques exposed. Invitations come from all over the country. I can heartily recommend anyone interested in furthering their fly fishing skills to become involved in both casting and fishing competitions.

I grew up in Launceston on the North Esk river where my brother Michael and I would hunt the trout with spears. It is ironic that I didn't learn to fly fish until I moved to Melbourne with my parents when I was thirteen years old. There were no trout to throw spears at in Melbourne, but near to where I lived there was a purpose built competition casting pool. The only time I ever wagged school was to go and practice casting before a competition incidentally, I got caught!

Fly fishing has been terrific to me over the past 23 years. As a teenager my keen interest in this sport kept me out of trouble when my mates were in it. The type of people involved in fly fishing meant that I always had good examples to follow. My spare time was spent outdoors and with good-natured people. Not in pin ball parlors or later, pubs. As a thirteen year old, I was taken under the wing of Jack Joyner from the Red Tag Club in Melbourne. At that time Jack was Australia's only world class caster. Jack had beaten Jon Tarantino the famous American caster at his own game. Jack replaced the father that I did not have. He was my mentor and friend. He taught me to cast before we ever went fishing and guess what … we caught lots of fish. Twenty Three years later I still believe that the best way to learn to fly fish is to learn to cast first at targets. Six months later, think about going fishing.

I get to see lots of fly fishermen and women during the season. I think that if the average angler was to double their casting ability (for most people this is an easy task with just a little professional help and practice), this would perhaps quadruple their fish catching rate. Practice short, quick, accurate casts at all angles to the wind. Learn just how short your back cast needs to be to cast accurately 20 feet into the wind. During a days fishing there will often be several close range opportunities. You will be kicking yourself if you miss these simple opportunities. Speed and accuracy is the answer to catching these close in fish.

Learn 'tip over shoulder' casting. This is where the wind blows directly onto the shoulder of your casting arm. You need to learn to cast with your rod hand in it's normal position but with the rod tip tracking back and forwards in a straight line above your down wind shoulder. This way you will never tangle, hook the expensive Gore-Tex coat or smash a bead head fly into that expensive rod. You will also have maximum accuracy.

Only rarely practice casting with the wind. Fish are not very often downwind of you and if they are, it is not very often that you should be casting down wind to catch them.

Also very important is your fish spotting skills. I guess I see about ten or fifteen times the number of fish that the average client sees. To see fish underwater you need to firstly know what you are looking for, and secondly practice seeing them a lot. Seeing a surface disturbance should be much easier but I am constantly amazed at how few people can spot the wave pattern of a fish after it has risen. My advice is to go to the nearest pond and throw stones of varying sizes into the water for a few hours. Throw them downwind, upwind and across the wind. Become accustomed to looking for the irregular wave up to 10 seconds after the stone landed.

The single biggest casting fault I see is the old windscreen wiper casting stroke. By this I mean that the rod swipes through an arc where the limp wrist is the pivot. This sort of casting stroke is no good for into or across wind casting, it's no good for accuracy or speed, and worse still, it is useless for shooting line. There are just two things that will make a remarkable difference to your casting if you suffer from the windscreen wiper disease.

1.Change your grip. Grip the rod with your thumb on top of the rod. Now rotate your wrist over so that you can see all the knuckles on the back of your rod hand. Tilt the rod tip down so that the butt of the rod comes into contact with your forearm. This gives a much more controllable grip than the old thumb on top system. Now apply pressure down on the body of the rod with your other hand. Notice how the butt 'locks' under your forearm for the back cast?

Go back to the thumb on top and push down on the rod. again. See how there is no 'lock'. I can assure you that your wrist is not strong enough for good fly casting. The other advantage here is that the forward push is made with your index finger knuckle, a much better option than your thumb because it promotes a longer push on the forward cast.

2.Practice moving the rod tip along a horizontal line not through the old windscreen wiper arc. To do this, go outside with your rod. No reel or line. Line up some power lines in the distance or the guttering on a two story house or some other high, horizontal line and practice moving the tip along this 'line of sight' with your wrist in the correct position. Once you get the hang of it, put a line on the rod and do it again.

Lisa and I spent twelve weeks in the Northern Territory and Kimberly, several years ago. We loved the salt water fly fishing and it provided experiences that all fly fishers should have. For instance, the sight of a one metre long, chrome-tinted Barramundi as it jumps, shaking fiercely, seeking it's freedom; or the tremendous speed of a sailfish when it is first hooked. You would swear you were hooked onto a Porsche racing car! Walking along a remote Kimberly beach, casting for Queenfish as they swam past, was simply the stuff dreams are made from. Our dinner depended upon our success and I was never worried about going hungry. On the other hand I think you are either a mountain or a sea-type person and I am definitely the former, and I always will be. Yes, the trout and his environment will win me over every time, however there will always be a little time for fishing adventures of a different kind.

As far as casting goes, much of the saltwater fly fishing I have done has been with heavy trout tackle, that is, 8 - weights. Casting is no more difficult, but the casting stroke must change to place more emphasis on propelling a weightier fly, a greater distance. Not huge distances but generally further than trout fishing conditions. This is where the long horizontal stroke of the rod tip is important. This is nothing that cannot be learnt in a couple of hours practice if you are familiar with how fly rods work.

Yes, boats do provide an enormous advantage. We certainly do not fish from boats all the time. We often use them to transport us to otherwise inaccessible fishing spots such as the shores of islands, or to get to good fishing areas quickly, and with a minimum of energy. Again the boat adds an efficiency that is immeasurable. It provides a height advantage, which is important in polaroiding, particularly in poor light, or with clients who are not accustomed to spotting fish. The boat also opens up other fishing opportunities that are not available to the shore bound angler, for instance wind lane fishing and loch style fishing. Both these methods give us the chance to catch many more fish on a given day.

Rob, we don't have any secrets. I am reminded of the first line from the constitution of the Red Tag Club 'aim to foster and promote the art of fly fishing'. I am proud to be able to say that we are teachers of fly fishing first and foremost, and that this is the function of our business. Now, let's think about flies?

Wet flies

1. First place has got to go to 'Bill Beck's cat fly'. Yellow seals fur body with a very soft grey cat wing, tied yeti style. The yellow body is absolutely irresistible to brown trout. Fish it any way you like. Trout rarely swim past it.

2. 'Mylar Bullet'. Our tie. Same as Becky's but with an orange tail, red wire ribbing finished with 10 turns around the head for weight and colour. Pull it fast….Speed Kills.

3. Simple 'Stick Caddis'. Our tie. Mixed brown and green dubbing along shank with a yellow micro chenille head…..Slow and steady wins the race.

4.'Claret Dabbler'. A sensational wake fly for clear water. Perhaps the best fly in the box.

Dry flies.

1. 'Guides Tag'. Our tie. Fluoro pink wool tag. Thin peacock herl body. Small black saddle palmered over. Finish with larger brown forward hackle. We catch more fish in a season on this fly than any other.

2. 'Cubit Mudeye'. Foam, or deer hair construction. Must sit 2/3 underwater to be effective. This is the most effective searching dry that we have. Amazing how the wake will attract fish when nothing else will (like loch style fishing)

3. Brown Parachute Dun.

4. Klinkhamer Special, tied to represent the local mayflies.

Rarely should you use just one fly. Try a guides tag on the dropper and a normal red tag on the point, or a para dun on the dropper and the klinkhamer on the point. The claret dabbler is deadly as a bob fly when used with Becky's cat but be sure to trip it through the waves for the last few meters of the retrieve.

Who knows what's next? It would be a nice feather in the cap to be World Champion. That would be a long way from spearing trout on the North Esk. From a business point of view we continue to strive to be the best and in this respect we never rest for a minute. We pride ourselves in offering a team of guides to our clients that is second to none, and we are constantly working on developing and honing the skills of this team. Increasing the already high quality of our product is the single most important thing in our lives at the moment and our very large repeat clientele is reward enough for the effort that we put in. Like you, we are very fortunate to be able to work in a profession that we are so passionate about.