THE WIGGLE AND THE PILE

by Floyd Dean

Here we will explore the third and fourth casts in the series, The Magfishicent Seven. So with this article, we are about half way to learning these seven valuable casts. These will help you be a better caster and allow you to fish under more adverse conditions. You will be able to place your fly in locations you’ve probably never dreamed of. More importantly, you will also be on your way to helping preserve the art of fly casting.

The Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club has always been a leader in fine fly casting and fishing. Over the Club’s one hundred plus years of existence, we’ve had numerous casting champions, rod designers and builders, fly tyers, tool makers and gurus of casting and fishing grace our ponds here in beautiful Golden Gate Park.

When the strike indicator was invented, it changed our world of fly fishing, and some of the more artful, graceful casts were abandoned and are generally not even being taught today. Most people just teach the basics to get someone started fishing. The fly fisher became a predator who just wanted to catch fish easily. The chuck and duck method of fishing came into existence so that people could deliver split shot, three flies and a strike indicator without piercing their ears or nose.

Casting and the graceful flowing lines that personify fly fishing were taken out of our world of fishing at that time. It’s not too late to rectify this. If you are willing to put the time and practice into artful casting, together we can learn some of these casts! Most people can cast a fly rod if they take the time to learn. Most of these casts are not that difficult. You just need to be exposed to them. Take a look at the paintings of Homer Winslow. He was fishing at the turn of the century and his casting form was beautiful.

The quest for artful fly casting will be rewarding. Some of the casts that we will cover in future articles are out of old books on fly casting that have been out of print for many years. For example Fred G. Shaw was an amateur champion trout fly caster at the International tournament in 1904. His book, ‘The Science of Fly Fishing for Trout, was printed in 1925. John Alden Knight’s book, ‘Modern Fly Casting, was copy written in 1942. Many of the casts mentioned in these two books are not being taught today. Even though they are great fishing casts.

There is one cast that was mentioned in an old book that took me four years to figure out and perform. I just couldn’t find anyone who knew how to do it or even had any knowledge of it. It shouldn’t be that difficult to find someone who can perform these casts. But, it is.

If you are willing to put in the time, we can preserve classic fly fishing so that it won’t be stuffed away in some dusty forgotten library never to be seen again. We as members of The Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club have a responsibility to continue this legacy of casting and fishing.

In future articles we will delve deeper into the art of fly casting and we will talk about casts that have been lost to the sport for well over fifty years. After the magfishicent seven, we will venture into the world of more difficult casts. They will be a challenge but they are worth learning. And, it won’t take four years. More importantly, they are worth passing on to our children. Now, that I have vented. Let’s wiggle!

THE WIGGLE CAST

The Wiggle Cast is a very useful cast and or mend. You can put it across a body of water that has complicated flow patterns and several speeds of current and get a drag free drift of the fly. The Wiggle Cast is good for fast moving water. It is also called the Serpentine or Snake Cast.

To make the cast, get out about 30 feet of line and lock the line to the handle of the rod with the middle finger of your casting hand. Make three or four good, well-controlled overhead false casts with nice parallel loops, (The top and bottom halves of the loops should be parallel to each other).

Make your final delivery to a stop. After you’ve made the stop, immediately wiggle the tip from side to side and lower the tip from 10 O’clock to about 9 O’clock as you wiggle. You can even drop the tip to within an inch of the water if you want as you wiggle. Basically, you wiggle the rod tip until the line hits the water. You can vary the horizontal and the vertical span that the rod tip moves. Technically, you make the cast and then you wiggle the rod from side to side moving the tip from about six inches for a tight ‘S’ pattern to two or three feet in each direction for a wider ‘’S’ pattern on the water. The further you tip travels from side to side, the larger the over all size of the ‘’S’ pattern will be.

A couple of things to remember are: The faster you move the tip the more ’S’ patterns you will produce. The slower you move the tip the fewer ‘’S’ patterns you will produce. You can control the number and size of “S’ shaped wiggles to overcome various speeds of current and achieve that ever elusive drag free drift.

Practice the wiggle cast until you can produce both narrow and wide ‘S’ patterns on the water at 20, 30 and 40 feet. You will need the double haul In order to cast further with the wiggle cast. Strip an extra ten feet of line off the reel. Hold the line in your line hand. If your double haul is working, you can use it to help you achieve more line speed to attain additional Distance. Make three or four false casts. When you make the final stop on the forward cast, you will let the line go and begin wiggling the rod tip from side to side as you shoot the line and begin to lower the rod tip. So, you double haul, stop, shoot line and immediately wiggle like crazy.

You have to stop and shoot line as you wiggle the rod tip in order to preserve accuracy and distance. The ‘’stop’ maintains accuracy and the ‘’shooting’ of additional line maintains distance. Since wiggling the line reduces the distance to the fly, the shooting of line compensates for that lost distance. If your target fish is 28 feet away, and your side-to-side wiggles have a 1 foot width about a foot apart you will reduce the distance the fly can travel by10 feet. To drop the fly on the nose of that fish, you will have to shoot an additional 10 feet of line. Or you could carry that additional 10 feet of line in the air as you false cast. Now, make a straight line cast across the target to see how much additional line you needed to shoot or carry in the air in a false cast to get to the target. The amount of line you need to carry will vary depending on distance and the size of your ‘S’ pattern. It will take some practice to maintain accuracy.

To cast further, you will need to strip off another ten feet of line and retrieve the first ten feet back, so then, you will have twenty feet of line to shoot. You will need the double haul to increase your line speed and bend or load in the rod in order to shoot the additional line. Remember to keep it smooth.

The rod has to accelerate smoothly. The line hand has move smoothly and the wiggling of the rod tip must be smooth. Don’t let smooth fool you. It still has to have enough energy and quickness to get the job done.

Practice this and keep adding distance until you can make a dry fly wiggle cast with controlled slack at 60 feet or more. To insure that you don’t lose accuracy, place a target at about twenty-eight feet. Get enough line out so that when you complete your wiggle cast, your fly will drop into the target. This cast will be very useful across the stream and even down stream. You will be amazed at how far you can cast a dry fly, with a drag free drift, and catch a fish! You’re success will fly in the face of that tired old phrase;” Most trout are caught at 35 feet or less.”

THE PILE CAST

I call this the No Loop Cast. It is also known as the Puddle, Stack and Parachute Cast. This is probably the first cast we have all made with a fly rod. It’s flop, flop, flop, and no loop. So, I know we can all do it. It is a little hard to go back and loosen up your wrist, though. You need a floppy wrist to make this cast. Your task is to break the wrist in the back cast and close the wrist on the forward cast and drop the tip. I know we’ve all been told never to break the wrist and never to close the wrist. The secret to fine fly casting is knowing how and when to use a well controlled wrist.

In the pile cast, your loop will be open and ugly because there will be no loop. Your line will fall to the water like a parachute and ribbon out into a serpentine pattern. Since the rod had forward momentum as you made the big arcing cast, there should be some forward energy in the line to keep it falling forward into those little ‘S’ patterns on the water. In order to turn this into something a little more graceful, we will want to introduce some control. We don’t want the fly landing in the water behind us or dumping in the water in front of us. So to add a little finesse to the cast, we will have a little stop in the back cast and a slight stop on the forward cast that is very high at about a quarter to twelve. We’re shooting for the moon in a high forward trajectory. As you make that high stop, just lower the tip of the rod to about 9 O’clock as the line comes down.

Your forward loop will be at it’s worst to perform this cast successfully. Just don’t make a habit of it. Believe it or not your wrist is still under control when you make this cast. You need to develop the ability to adjust the firmness of your wrist to accomplish advanced casting skills. So the cadence for this cast beginning with the back cast is flop back, flop forward, flop back, shoot high, drop the tip. But, remember, flop with control.

When I think of fly casting a phrase from the book, A River Runs Through It, pops into my head, In the book, Norman’s father said that if he had his way, “Nobody who did not know how to catch a fish would be allowed to disgrace a fish by catching it.” The next time you toss a #2 Bunion Bug across the Madison River, try the Wiggle and the Pile casts. You might rekindle the joy of fly fishing in your spirit. Pass it on!

Please feel free to contact me with any questions regarding the Wiggle and the Pile casts or any of the other techniques of fly fishing we have covered in past articles. Next month, the bounce and combination fly casting.

As always please feel free to email me or see me at the GGACC ponds.

Tight Loops!
Floyd Dean

©5/14/2003