Photo by Louis Cahill

By Jeff Hickman

Ask any Spey casting coach or steelhead guide what they find themselves saying most often during the day and most likely it’s the words, “slow down”.

I have often joked about just getting a tape recorder to say it for me on repeat. But oftentimes guys say they are trying really hard but they just can’t!

It’s as though their muscles won’t go slow, or maybe their brain won’t let their muscles go slow. Is it fear of failure? Paranoia that they might make a pathetic cast that just lands in an ugly pile of line? How embarrassing that would that be if others on the river saw! Rushed casts can happen for any number of reasons and they happen to everyone from time to time.

There are a couple of tricks I use when people get into this downward spiral of rushing the cast.

First I ask them to take a short one minute timeout and relax their shoulders. After the timeout, I ask them to stop and pause for a full second after setting the anchor. A good way to ensure that you wait a full second is to take a deep breath after you set the anchor. You don’t have to be in such a rush. After the anchor is set you have lots of time to sweep and then cast. It’s as if that pause just sets the tempo for the rest of the cast.

After all, the anchor placement is completely separate from the sweep and cast. It’s important to remind yourself of that. All too often, these three distinct moves start to blend into one and it just makes a rushed mess.

The other thing this pause achieves is that it allows your fly to sink slightly and stick to the water a touch. This helps to prevent your anchor from blowing, which is when your fly comes off of the water before your forward casting stroke.

After awhile, if this suggestion still doesn’t help, I will ask them to show me a cast that is too slow. “What does that look like?” I ask them. “Just one cast that is too slow.” When they try, the fear of making a wimpy cast doesn’t allow them to go slow enough.

I urge them, “You just showed me 10 casts in a row that were too fast. Let’s sacrifice one more and show me what too slow is. Then we can find the happy mid range”. Nine out of ten times when they really focus and try to go too slow they accidentally make a perfect effortless cast. It is always shocking to them!

Try this yourself. You might find out that you need to slow down.