Fly Fish - Physics and Grip

Dusty Wissmath: Hi I am Dusty Wissmath and this is introduction to fly fishing. Right now, we are going to talk about the basic physics of the cast and also the grip. The main different between fly fishing and other types of fishing is that where we are bay casting, plug casting or spin casting. We are the using the weight of the liver to pull line off thee reel. When we are fly fishing we are going to assume that the fly is weightless, so we need some other way to get the fly out to where we want it. And that's what the fly line is for. In fly fishing, we are actually casting the fly line, it's a flexible weight and we are going to lift that flexible weight and cast it with the fly rod which is a flexible liver. Let's talk about the grip. Fly casting is a stick sport, just like baseball or tennis or golf and you have to start out with a grip. The grip I like is one where you lay the cork of the rod across your fingers diagonally and pull that grip up in to your hand like so. The pad of your thumb is flat on top of the cork and right at the end, there's a little bridge between that first joining your thumb and the cork. The muscle of your thumb is on top of the cork as well as that meaty part of the palm of your hand. The most important thing is that the grip is relaxed. We are going to be building muscle memory and I want a good relaxed grip. I am tight like, I am going to be tensed from my fingers all the way up to my shoulder and it is not going to build good muscle memory. Again a good, relaxed grip. That covers the basic physics of the cast and the grip. So let's talk about the parts of cast.