Winston Rods - Casting Clinic with Joan Wulff

How's your Grip?
The First Move
Back Cast Power Snap
Drift on the Backcast
The Forward Power Snap
Getting the Whole Picture
The Double Haul
Casting Clinic (1977)

An accomplished fly casting instructor, Joan Salvato Wulff, is a former National and International casting champion. Highlights: Winning a Fisherman's Distance Fly Event against all male competition, and in 1960, casting a fly 161 feet.

Chief instructor at the Wulff School of Fly Fishing, she has authored 3 books on the subject and written a fly casting column for Fly Rod & Reel magazine for 22 years. Her video Dynamics of Fly Casting showcases her teaching ability.

In 2004 Joan was enshrined in the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame and appeared on ABC's Good Morning America in a segment about the growing popularity of fly fishing among women. She joined the Winston technical staff in 1996, and has been invaluable in helping us build rods designed specifically to meet the needs of anglers around the world.

Wrist action on the backcast

Once you understand the mechanics of fly-casting, there are many details and little disciplines that will make them much, much more effective for you. Let’s start with the wrist-action detail, around which much of the mystery of fly-casting has been centered.

This illustration shows the three positions of the hand that wrist action makes possible. A) Bent down, B) straight and C) bent back. To control wrist movement, you should be completely familiar with all three. The maximum wrist action you need to use in fly-casting is that which is between A and B on the backcast stroke (BENT DOWN TO STRAIGHT) and between B and A on the forward stroke (STRAIGHT TO BENT DOWN). Wrist action between BENT DOWN AND STRAIGHT is really a very small movement and you may be skeptical about its effectiveness; however correct wrist action in conjunction with forearm action, is about all that is needed for perfect casts.

Detail - Figure 2A

Cradle the rod grip in your fingers and place your thumb on top of it, in line with the shaft. Flex your thumb so that the pad is resting square and flat on the cork and the knuckle is elevated. When the grip is secure, "bend down" your wrist to make the rod grip touch your forearm underneath.

DETAIL: Make sure the whole rod grip and reel seat extension are under your forearm. Figure 2A shows a common mistake, that of letting the end of the rod grip and reel seat lie next to the forearm. This position looks closed but is a "loose connection" The Fig. 2B position sets you up in a perfect hand/rod position, marrying the two for the beginning of the backcast.

A review of the mechanics of the casting stroke will help you understand when to use the two wrist positions. We call the first move, that of getting rod, line, leader and fly moving in the direction of the cast, the LOADING MOVE. It is followed by the POWER SNAP, the quick movement of the rod from one position to another to end the stroke, during which the fly line "turns over" the rod tip from one side to the other.

Backcast wrist action (Fig. 3). Begin the loading move with the wrist in the bent-down (closed) position (Fig. 2). The wrist snaps to STRAIGHT during the power snap to end the stroke (Fig 3B). When the wrist is straight, the rod/wrist position is "open" to 45 degrees maximum. Within the framework of the line movement shown in Fig. 4, Fig. 3 shows the two backcast rod/wrist positions. In addition to wrist motion, also use elbow and shoulder motion to get the arm from A to B.

Detail - Figure 4

DETAIL 1 The hand has moved from bent down to straight. This is wrist action.
DETAIL 2 The forearm has moved backward. This is elbow action.
DETAIL 3 The upper arm has lifted to be roughly parallel to the ground. This is shoulder action.

This compound movement produces a 90-degree angle between forearm and upper arm. Although the angle will vary a few degrees, depending on the line length and your arm length, 90 degrees is a good guide for self-analysis. Fig. 5 suggests that you can master the backcast wrist action anytime you are free to think about it with a pen or pencil in your hand.

Paying attention to detail will pay off!