Fly Casting: Overhead Casting

Video Transcript

"The next cast we're going to learn is the overhead cast. The overhead cast has two directions. It has a back direction and a forward direction. The back direction is the hardest to learn because it's really difficult for us to essentially learn to make our muscles cast backwards and then go forward. So the overhead cast is used when you have lots of room behind you to make a forward cast and a back cast and you're not limited with back cast room like we did with the Roll cast. You can cast farther, you can present your fly like a dry fly, it can hover very nicely. So, these are the nice things about the overhead cast. And besides, everybody wants to do the overhead cast because they think that's fly fishing. So that's what we're going to cover now so you can be fly fishing. OKay, so, with the Roll cast we learned the forward basic cast, OKay? Now what we're going to do is we're going to put the line behind us and then we're essentially going to transition right into what we learned with the overhead cast. So, I'm going to demonstrate this just with my hand before I even cast with the rod. It's so helpful folks to do the basic moves with your arm and with your hand. Because if you can't do it with your hands, you can not do it with the fly rod. We've got our lift, our arm comes back this far, we flick the line up into the air, notice how my hand stays in front of me, our hand drifts up as the line goes up. Notice how this is raised up? And then all we do is drop our elbow down. Drop. And there is our completed overhead cast. Now that you've learned the movements, we are going to make the cast with the rod, reel, and line. It's always best to start out with a short amount of line and learn to cast it well before you go for the gusto and the distance. So, we're going to do just like we did with the Roll cast. We're going to start with our tip down, we're going to lift, we're going to slide back like this. Now, notice how we flick out rod tip up? Flick up, there, and there's our cast. So, as you've noticed as I brought this rod up, my head actually followed my hand and I went up to my rod tip to see the line and I came forward. When you're learning this it is really crucial that you watch the timing of the rod and the line as it works. There is the overhead cast."