Next in our tutorial on straight line casting for fly fishing is what happens once your line is fully extended behind you.
Fully extended means absolutely straight in bid air, and you will feel the line loading in the rod tip with both your right hand holding the rod and your left holding the line.
Your brain will instinctively estimate the time required for the back cast to straighten because it is virtually the same time that it took for the to pass your head. The brain is so amazing that it will now be just wait to tell you the exact moment to start the forward cast. Throughout the forward cast the wrist should remain its “broken” position until final accelleration. The wrist should straighten around 11.00pm to give the line added impetus. Motion is checked sharply at 10:00 pm. This lets the line extend straight and true, and, in theory, a well formed loop will uncoil from the rod tip directly above the line.
To recap, the basic cast is the clock positions of nine, twelve, ten. Expressed another way: tip down, top (stop and pause) and then ten, (when you should stop and drop to keep the line straight as it falls).
With commitment and practice your fly fishing casting techniques should become absolutely intuitive.