Getting a good drift, upstream casting

[henrydavid]

I had a good day today, 9 total, all on dry flies. I'd found a nice pool and was casting directly upstream. For some reason I found it darn near impossible to get a drag free drift with the fly floating directly downstream to me. I'm fairly sure the current at my feet was twice as quick as the slower current upstream but this drag was ridiculous.

Seems to be a lot of experts here, so for a newbie (me) I figured I'd cast out and see if I can get some hints.

 

[jpavoncello]

I almost always cast upstream when fishing dries. It is by far the best way to get a drag free drift.

 

[Padraic]

HenryDavid,

I am guessing you were standing at the foot of the pool you were in. As a pool narrows to the foot, the water will pick up speed. The current at the back of the pool, then, will drag the line further upstream.

There are a number of presentations you can use to throw slack in the line. Generally, these "fancy casts" concentrate on putting the slack up in the leader near the fly. In this case, you might need the slack nearer to you. The easiest thing might be to cast high (literally) , high in the air, and wiggle the rod tip as the line falls. This will shorten the cast and put zig zags in the line near you. Your fly will drift naturally so long as the zig zags are getting pulled by the current.

What might be even more effective though, is to read the current and find a more advantageous place to cast from.

 

[MKern]

My advice would be to mend your slack line and like any mend your should place (or replace) your line into the slower water (taking it from faster moving water than where your fly is).

Like your original post stated, the water at your feet was moving twice as fast as where you were casting, your line was being pulled out of the slower water by the faster water at your feet.

Another way would be to lift your slack line off the water, or as much of it as you can.

 

[MKern]

To add to what Pad said. If you choose to do a fancy cast that adds slack line at the fly during a cast. A good cast for a beginner that is extremely easy to do is what I call a bucket cast.

Basically, don't follow through when finishing your cast and end it relativly high. Then just let you line fall to the water. This often finishes with the fly in your desired pool with a few feet of extra leader along with it. This gives your fly time to float towards you at "normal" speed while you slack line is being pulled out of the pool.

(It seems that when we begin fly fishing it takes a couple months to get good straight cast, where the line unraviles nicely. Then, we discover that overpowering cast to curve the line and cast we don't follow through on to get all of our line to land in a pile are considered trick cast.)

 

[pete41]

Learn to throw left or right curve casts so that the shepards hook will place the fly on the seam where the fish are focusing.Except for still water trout will invariably hold where they get some current break and don't have to expend more energy feeding then they get from food they take it.It doesn't take much,even a baseball sized rock can provide more upswelling then you might imagine.If you are into Nascar,think of the air flow demonstrations.
If your leader hooks upstream by the time it catches up to the fly you should get a near perfect drift with out a leader lining the trout.

 

[henrydavid]

Great advice here guys, thanks. I think it was mostly the unusual current that caused me such grief. Next time I approach this I'll try some of the casting methods mentioned.