Fight Wind: Learn The Double Haul

This is your time of year: your vacation. You're on the flats, fly rod in
hand, finally. The tarpon is sixty feet away. Something electric - perhaps
a primitive instinct - surges through you, turning on your long-held
dream of hitting the fly-fishing grand slam. You lift the line off the
water, cast back, then forward. The wind howls, and in your mind you
hear a coyote, but then you remember you're nowhere near the woods.
Over the water you see your beautifully shaped, but somewhat wide,
loop blown out of shape. Your line crashes down, well short of your
quest. Reality left hooks your dream. Your guide says, "Use this."

He holds a spinning rod. You think, Isn't a spinning rod cheating? What
will I tell my friends? That I played it safe and stopped at third base? I'm
supposed to be a fly fisher, for better or worse, aren't I?

Yes. Then why not for the better? Why not learn the double haul and
how to turn your casting loops into tight wind-piercing-like arrows?

It's easier than you think.

LET ME EXPLAIN. I'll begin by asking: what is a haul?

Simply put, it is casting a fly rod with one hand and simultaneously
pulling down the line with your other hand, and increasing the line
tension on the rod tip, and therefore bending (loading) the rod more so
that when we abruptly stop the rod at the end of the cast, the tip
recoils faster and across a longer arc.

To take this definition even further: The haul is, in a sense, a reflection
of our power snap.

And what is a power snap?

I'll define it as the second part of the casting stroke. In the first part,
the loading move, we slowly accelerate the rod. In the second part, the
power snap, we rapidly increase acceleration, reaching maximum
speed at the end of our casting stroke.

Let me digress: It is a well-known principal of fly casting that if we want
to increase the length of our cast, we must also increase the length
and acceleration of our loading move, and also of our haul.

(If you ever watch a long-distance tournament fly caster you'll see that
during his or her power snap they move their hauling hand faster and
longer than their rod hand.)

HOW LONG AND FAST? The more line we're casting - usually at least 35
feet - and/or the heavier our fly, the longer and faster we must haul. If
we properly accelerate our cast and our line forms a wide loop, we
hauled too slowly. If our line forms a tailing loop, we hauled too quickly
or too early.

To be more specific: When false casting,
we'll finish most of our downward back-
cast hauls with our line hand pointing to
about eight o'clock. If we want to increase
the length of our back cast haul - many
casters haul longer on their back cast
than on their forward - we'll have haul
at a steeper angle and finish the haul
with our line hand pointing to about
six o'clock.

On most of our downward forward-
cast hauls we'll finish with our line
hand pointing to about seven o'clock.
On our presentation casts we'll accel-
erate our haul as fast as possible and
finish with our line hand behind our front thigh.



To help increase my presentation-cast acceleration, I like to pretend
that, instead of hauling, I'm holding a football upside down and
throwing it behind me as far as I can.

But what about those tailing loops? To help prevent hauling to early,
we must begin our downward haul and power snap at the same time. So
during our back cast, loading move we must keep our line hand level
with our rod hand and move both backwards. (This will seem difficult at
first, but with a little practice it will become second nature.) During our
forward cast loading move we must move both hands forward.

Next, we begin our power snap and downward haul, rapidly increasing
acceleration, then snapping our hauling hand down. Finally we stop our
haul and our fly rod.

(To help me do this, I like to visualize a loose rope connecting my rod
and line hands. When I stop my rod I imagine the rope completely
tightening and stopping my line hand.)

But what if we continue our haul after we stop the rod?

We'll make it very difficult to execute our upward haul without adding
slack.

(More about the upward haul below.)

So now you have it: the basics of the long, downward haul.

WHAT WENT WRONG? Probably when we executed our upward haul and
gave line back.

As soon as we finish our long, downward
haul we must immediately give line back
at the same speed the line is unrolling.
If we give line back too quickly - some-
times to compensate for stopping our
downward haul too late - and we don't
feel tension on the line, we'll add slack
and weaken our cast.

But supposing we give line back
too slowly and don't get our line
hand up to our rod hand before
we begin our next cast?

We'll probably commit one of two
serious, casting defects: 1. We
begin our cast by moving our rod hand before or faster than we
move our line hand, and therefore add line slack between our hands
and decrease the line-tension on the rod tip. The result: the rod
doesn't fully load and our cast is under powered and maybe even
collapses. Oh, the embarrassment! 2. We begin the cast with our line
hand below our rod hand, and we still manage to move both hands
in-sync, but because we started our haul with our line hand too low, we
run out of hauling room. Again our cast collapses.

To help get our line hand up to our rod hand it's important to remember
that if we shoot line, we should simultaneously slide our line hand
upward.

If we finish our upward haul level with our casting hand, but still add
line slack between our hands, we should try varying the speed of our
cast and/or our haul. For example, slow down our haul and speed up
our cast, or speed up our haul and slow down our cast.

If we're false casting into the wind and we cannot execute our upward
hauls without adding slack, we should increase the acceleration of our
downward hauls but decrease their length. This may appear to be a
contradiction, but it isn't if we begin our haul later in the casting stroke,
after we begin our power snap.

And remember: When executing our upward, back cast haul we must
not move our rod hand forward. (This will shorten our forward casting
stroke.)

GETTING THE LINE TANGLED AROUND THE ROD BUTT. This is a common
problem when executing a long, upward haul. To solve this we should
begin our upward haul by moving our line hand up and away from our
body.

FINALLY THE REAL SECRET. To become a great hauler practice
throwing a ball with your hauling hand.

And so for as long as we fish we'll probably wish for less wind and
closer fish, but now we won't have to wish as much, because in our
double haul we'll thankfully see its defects: wide loops, tailing loops -
loops that will reflect cures and help us become our own hauling
doctors; so that the next time we're on the flats and see a tarpon we'll
round third and head for home.

Copyright 2007 by Randall Kadish. All rights reserved.



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