The double haul in fly fishing is a combination of the back and forward single hauls. As we said in the previous postings, a single haul starts with your hands together and they move apart. In the same way, a double haul starts with your hands together, and then they move apart during the back haul. Your hands then move together again while you feed the line into the back cast as it extends in the air. Finally, move your hands apart again to accelerate the line during the forward cast before shooting or feeding the line into the forward cast as part of a false casting routine.
In other words you haul the line during a back haul, then feed it into the back cast and haul again on the forward cast. In short: together - apart, together - apart (British parlance) and down - up, down - shoot (US parlance).
A few bullet point reminders:
- Keep it smooth and make sure that the rod hand and the line hand accelerate to a stop.
- Your line hand must not complete before the rod tip speed is at its maximum.
- The speed of your rod tip speed is at its maximum just after the rod hand makes the stop.
- Never allow any slack line when you feed into the extending cast.
- To ensure your line shoots easily, always keep it clean.
- When you are still learning it’s much better to haul a small amount of line at the correct time than to try to make long hauls.
- To increase rod loading and line speed your hauls must complement the action of the rod hand.
And, before you know it, your fly fishing skills will have increased exponentially.
