Elbows in......

[afishinado]

Really good video about arm position when FFing:

 

[JG63]

Really good video about arm position when FFing:

I learned to cast while keeping a book under my arm from my Dad who learned it from George Harvey - any fighter knows that you can transfer energy more efficiently with your arms close to your body - you can punch (or cast) using ADDED core/leg strength instead of relying solely on arm/shoulder strength - think of how a batter steps into the swing for added power - it’s all part of coordinated motion and efficient energy transfer - am I a great caster? - not really - Lefty could fling a whole 90 foot fly line with his bare hand - I simply fish areas where a 100 foot cast isn’t required (stealthy wading is…) When I taught fly casting, I concentrated on form, line management in the air and the water, and of course accuracy - IE, when guiding on “Clark’s”Creek 30 years ago, fly placement was a 3 dimensional affair (roll-pitch-yaw) - cast to the correct distance, IN the feeding lane, UNDER the Hemlock branch - such are the ramblings of a has been - good video though!

 

[redietz]

He's clearly never seen Joan Wulff cast:

 

[vern]

Just have to share.

I feel this is the proper post for the following:

I just saw a Joe Humphrey's Facebook reel of his presentation at the 2026 Lancaster Fly Fishing Show.
Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to the Show, but I was not pleased with Joe's demonstration and crowd teaching of how to cast.
What he demonstrated is good for "Euro nymphing". Or any flipping a line a short distance, but it isn't fly casting.

Fly casting is casting a fly line. The physics of moving a line. A cord. The same as the electric cord from the sweeper in the house.
Straighten the line and then apply the little amount of energy required to pull it and let it move in the direction desired.

It's fly casting.

It's fun.

The technique Joe has promoted for years is short distance flipping. He did it when he taught his nymph fishing technique. (A type of a "tuck cast".)

What he told the crowd to do - bend the wrist up and back and then punch it forward with the thumb and a squeeze of the handle - is a simple means for flipping a mostly leader and weighted rig a short distance.
It's really not fly casting.

It's what is used mostly with a long rod and a short line.

Physics of moving a cord - a fly line - is different.

A "tuck cast", a "curve cast", a "crash cast", a "double haul", a "roll cast" (not really a good cast for first technique in learning fly casting) and other types of casts are performed by handling a fly line.
Fly casting is handling a fly line.
The leader and tippet are secondary and only needed for managing the tip of the fly line and eventually for modifying to present flies and to actually fish.

Learning the physics of moving the line is fun. That's the casting. It doesn't require much energy at all. Most people use too much if not way too much energy to do it.

Flipping the wrist for a back cast is not good.

Fly casting is not bending the wrist backward to flip the leader up in the air and behind and then to flip-punch it forward and use a thumb press and a hand squeeze on the cork grip to make it hit the water at a spot.

Bow and arrow casts are fun and necessary only under really rare conditions. In that manner, they are similar to what Joe was teaching at the Lancaster demonstration - a specific technique for specific situations with a specific rig.

I just bought a couple of Lee Wulff's Fly-Os for casting around the house. And maybe lend to someone really interested in the fun of casting.
It's nice to have one again.
The Fly-Os are fun. They very much demonstrate how little energy is needed to cast.
A straightened line requires little power to send it in a direction and little movement to stop the pull and let the curve unroll where you want it to go.

A late friend of mine (Mark Antolosky) taught casting at Lee and Joan Wulff's Catskill flyfishing teaching operation when it first started in 1979. He and I first met when he was a teaching assistant for Joe when Joe was selected to teach the flyfishing classes offered through the Penn State College physical education offerings. George Harvey got Penn State to add flyfishing to the classes offered by the Phys Ed department in order to teach a physical activity that could last through late in life. Tennis and any of the other activities do not.
The activity was to be the emphasis of the class. Not the teacher.

When he reached retirement, George had selected Joe who was a wrestling coach nearby and taught Joe how to flyfish at the degree necessary to take over to teach. Casting wasn't his top skill. No one has every skill at the top of the crowd.

Mark and I became close friends quickly and besties soon after. We flyfished together a lot from small brookie creeks to larger waters - such as Penns.

For 10 years he and Lee Wulff took trips to fish the lower Yellowstone together.

Fly casting is a sport in and of itself.
It is not flipping a line with a "jig and bobber" setup.
That technique has its benefit, but it is not any good for actual fly casting.

Learn from others. Lefty Kreh, Joan Wulff, others. Go cast just by itself. Learn for yourself how to handle the line and the physics you need.
Recommend practicing fly casting year-round and anywhere, not just on the water.
Fish later.
It will be much more fun.
Guaranteed.

 

[Bamboozle]

Once when fishing at an incredibly tight rhododendron choked stream I discovered the ONLY way to present a fly by "fly casting" was to bring in a chain saw and clear all the rhododendron or hang my head in shame and try something different...

Since I didn't have a chainsaw and could give a rat's arse about definitions on what is or isn't fly casting; instead, I took handfuls of fly line and my fly & leader and tossed it through openings in the branches. Then I jiggled & moved the line, leader & fly with my rod tip to get the fly in a feeding lane and let it drift downstream.

I caught a bunch of brookies that day using this method and make NO apologies for catching fish, having fun and not having to pull up stakes and go somewhere else with more room, lest someone look down on my tactics.

BTW - I caught ALL of my fish that day on a Beadhead (BH) Prince Nymph under an indicator...

Just checking...

Is a BH Prince Nymph a "real" fly or should I have been using a Catskill dry and is using an indicator really fly fishing?

Just so I know the number of my transgressions... 🙄

 

[joebamboo]

Just more ways of trying to make "flyfishing" and those who "fly fish" something and someone very very special.

 

[dudemanspecial]

Just have to share.

I feel this is the proper post for the following:

I just saw a Joe Humphrey's Facebook reel of his presentation at the 2026 Lancaster Fly Fishing Show.
Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to the Show, but I was not pleased with Joe's demonstration and crowd teaching of how to cast.
What he demonstrated is good for "Euro nymphing". Or any flipping a line a short distance, but it isn't fly casting.

Fly casting is casting a fly line. The physics of moving a line. A cord. The same as the electric cord from the sweeper in the house.
Straighten the line and then apply the little amount of energy required to pull it and let it move in the direction desired.

It's fly casting.

It's fun.

The technique Joe has promoted for years is short distance flipping. He did it when he taught his nymph fishing technique. (A type of a "tuck cast".)

What he told the crowd to do - bend the wrist up and back and then punch it forward with the thumb and a squeeze of the handle - is a simple means for flipping a mostly leader and weighted rig a short distance.
It's really not fly casting.

It's what is used mostly with a long rod and a short line.

Physics of moving a cord - a flyline - is different.

A "tuck cast", a "curve cast", a "crash cast", a "double haul", a "roll cast" (not really a good cast for first technique in learning fly casting) and other types of casts are performed by handling a fly line.
Fly casting is handling a fly line.
The leader and tippet are secondary and only needed for managing the tip of the fly line and eventually for modifying to present flies and to actually fish.

Learning the physics of moving the line is fun. That's the casting. It doesn't require much energy at all. Most people use too much if not way too much energy to do it.

Flipping the wrist for a back cast is not good.

Fly casting is not bending the wrist backward to flip the leader up in the air and behind and then to flip-punch it forward and use a thumb press and a hand squeeze on the cork grip to make it hit the water at a spot.


Bow and arrow casts are fun and necessary only under really rare conditions. In that manner, they are similar to what Joe was teaching at the Lancaster demonstration - a specific technique for specific situations with a specific rig.

I just bought a couple of Lee Wulff's Fly-Os for casting around the house. And maybe lend to someone really interested in the fun of casting.
It's nice to have one again.
The Fly-Os are fun. They very much demonstrate how little energy is needed to cast.
A straightened line requires little power to send it in a direction and little movement to stop the pull and let the curve unroll where you want it to go.

Joe's techniques are good for flipping long leaders (or even just monofilament line) in order to punch a mini-bobber and bead head (mini-jig) setup, but it is not good for casting dries, wets or longer distance tuck casts with nymphs or other heavy flies.

A late friend of mine (Mark Antolosky) taught casting at Lee and Joan Wulff's Catskill flyfishing teaching operation when it first started in 1979. He and I first met when he was a teaching assistant for Joe when Joe was selected to teach the flyfishing classes offered through the Penn State College physical education offerings. George Harvey got Penn State to add flyfishing to the classes offered by the Phys Ed department in order to teach a physical activity that could last through late in life. Tennis and any of the other activities do not.
The activity was to be the emphasis of the class. Not the teacher.

When he reached retirement, George had selected Joe who was a wrestling coach nearby and taught Joe how to flyfish at the degree necessary to take over to teach. Casting wasn't his top skill. No one has every skill at the top of the crowd.

Mark and I became close friends quickly and besties soon after. We flyfished together a lot from small brookie creeks to larger waters - such as Penns.

For 10 years he and Lee Wulff took trips to fish the lower Yellowstone together.
Fly casting is a sport in and of itself.
It is not flipping a line with a "jig and bobber" setup.
That technique has its benefit, but it is not any good for actual fly casting.

Don't confuse fishing with a flyrod fly to be fly casting. Don't let it be the core of fly fishing. They really are different. Fly casting is working with a fly line.

The technique Joe was teaching the crowd is good for stocked trout in open water with very little overhead tree branches or bank materials. It doesn't do well for handling fly lines.

Joe always has had a great teacher personality. But what he teaches/taught isn't necessarily what needs to be learned for fly casting.
Learn from others. Lefty Kreh, Joan Wulff, others. Go cast just by itself. Learn for yourself how to handle the line and the physics you need.
Recommend practicing fly casting year-round and anywhere, not just on the water.
Fish later.
It will be much more fun.
Guaranteed.

I don't believe Joe has ever hid that he taught to cast to catch fish, not to look graceful.

 

[gulfgreyhound]

The Ballet of the Double Haul ,TuTu not included. GG

 

[Bamboozle]

I've tossed back a few with Joe a few times at the bar at Allenberry when the Heinze family owned and operated Allenberry.

He's the furthest thing from a purist or snob which I guess is why I drank with him. 😉

 

[gfenlikestolosepasswords]

Heritage Angler introduced me to Joe at a presentation at a store in Allentown. He then convinced him to take me out to the parking lot and teach me how to cast.

It was the first time I'd ever met Ed, and obviously Joe.

I miss you Ed. And I still use the technique's Joe taught me to "squeeze" and to "tap the button" when casting.

 

[Bamboozle]

Heritage Angler introduced me to Joe at a presentation at a store in Allentown. He then convinced him to take me out to the parking lot and teach me how to cast.

It was the first time I'd ever met Ed, and obviously Joe.

I miss you Ed. And I still use the technique's Joe taught me to "squeeze" and to "tap the button" when casting.

It might ruffle even more feathers amongst the purists, but Ed is the one who taught and turned me on to Tenkara one day on Coplay Creek up in Hockedauqua Park.

I miss Ed too...

 

[vern]

Fishing to just catch fish is different. Catch by any means possible.
There are many means.

The point is fly casting is a technique that involves using a fly line as the main method of presenting a fly.

Teaching catching fish with a fly rod is different than teaching casting.


The first time in life I saw people using fly rods they were using short leaders, a string of split shot and black nose dace and teasing them where the trout were likely to be holed up.
They caught trout.
That wasn't fly casting.
It wasn't fly fishing.
The first time I came across fly casting was watching people casting lines to present flies to feeding trout.

It was fly casting. A technique of casting a line. Not a weight.


(P.S. I drank a number of times with Joe and Mark. Downtown State College. Usually right after helping to teach fly tying class. Had some long discussions. Etc. Mark's dad was George Harvey's best friend. I'm not bragging, but drinking with someone and discussing things about the sport doesn't mean superiority over anyone, just experience. And some burps.)

 

[afishinado]

 

[troutbert]

The "thumb squeeze" is good not just for short casts, it also useful for medium and longer casts.

IMHO, it's just part of normal fly casting.

Way back in the day, people said "don't break the wrist" i.e. keep the wrist locked. But they also recommended practicing casting holding a book against your body with your elbow. Both things restrict movement, limiting your casting ability.

On the forward cast, you start with your arm and rod behind you, after making the backcast, and as your arm moves forward it is accelerating (gaining speed). With the "thumb squeeze" you break the wrist, rotating your hand forward. It's a "kicker" at the end of the casting stroke that creates additional acceleration that creates great line speed.

So, the casting power is coming not only from the movement of the arm, but also from the movement of the wrist.

Think about a baseball player throwing the ball, or a tennis player hitting the ball, or a basketball player shooting a long shot.

They don't keep the wrist locked. You get much more speed if you incorporate the wrist movement.

 

[PENZZZ]

It might ruffle even more feathers amongst the purists, but Ed is the one who taught and turned me on to Tenkara one day on Coplay Creek up in Hockedauqua Park.

I miss Ed too...

It is rare that I see references to Coplay Creek on any forum. Hokendauqua park is a block from my home of forty-five years. At one time you could count on catching holdover stocked trout. Today that isn't the case, as the creek runs warm in summer as it sometimes runs dry due to sinkholes upstream of the park.

 

[JeffP]

Just have to share.

I feel this is the proper post for the following:

I just saw a Joe Humphrey's Facebook reel of his presentation at the 2026 Lancaster Fly Fishing Show.
Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to the Show, but I was not pleased with Joe's demonstration and crowd teaching of how to cast.
What he demonstrated is good for "Euro nymphing". Or any flipping a line a short distance, but it isn't fly casting.

Fly casting is casting a fly line. The physics of moving a line. A cord. The same as the electric cord from the sweeper in the house.
Straighten the line and then apply the little amount of energy required to pull it and let it move in the direction desired.

It's fly casting.

It's fun.

The technique Joe has promoted for years is short distance flipping. He did it when he taught his nymph fishing technique. (A type of a "tuck cast".)

What he told the crowd to do - bend the wrist up and back and then punch it forward with the thumb and a squeeze of the handle - is a simple means for flipping a mostly leader and weighted rig a short distance.
It's really not fly casting.

It's what is used mostly with a long rod and a short line.

Physics of moving a cord - a fly line - is different.

A "tuck cast", a "curve cast", a "crash cast", a "double haul", a "roll cast" (not really a good cast for first technique in learning fly casting) and other types of casts are performed by handling a fly line.
Fly casting is handling a fly line.
The leader and tippet are secondary and only needed for managing the tip of the fly line and eventually for modifying to present flies and to actually fish.

Learning the physics of moving the line is fun. That's the casting. It doesn't require much energy at all. Most people use too much if not way too much energy to do it.

Flipping the wrist for a back cast is not good.

Fly casting is not bending the wrist backward to flip the leader up in the air and behind and then to flip-punch it forward and use a thumb press and a hand squeeze on the cork grip to make it hit the water at a spot.

Bow and arrow casts are fun and necessary only under really rare conditions. In that manner, they are similar to what Joe was teaching at the Lancaster demonstration - a specific technique for specific situations with a specific rig.

I just bought a couple of Lee Wulff's Fly-Os for casting around the house. And maybe lend to someone really interested in the fun of casting.
It's nice to have one again.
The Fly-Os are fun. They very much demonstrate how little energy is needed to cast.
A straightened line requires little power to send it in a direction and little movement to stop the pull and let the curve unroll where you want it to go.

A late friend of mine (Mark Antolosky) taught casting at Lee and Joan Wulff's Catskill flyfishing teaching operation when it first started in 1979. He and I first met when he was a teaching assistant for Joe when Joe was selected to teach the flyfishing classes offered through the Penn State College physical education offerings. George Harvey got Penn State to add flyfishing to the classes offered by the Phys Ed department in order to teach a physical activity that could last through late in life. Tennis and any of the other activities do not.
The activity was to be the emphasis of the class. Not the teacher.

When he reached retirement, George had selected Joe who was a wrestling coach nearby and taught Joe how to flyfish at the degree necessary to take over to teach. Casting wasn't his top skill. No one has every skill at the top of the crowd.

Mark and I became close friends quickly and besties soon after. We flyfished together a lot from small brookie creeks to larger waters - such as Penns.

For 10 years he and Lee Wulff took trips to fish the lower Yellowstone together.

Fly casting is a sport in and of itself.
It is not flipping a line with a "jig and bobber" setup.
That technique has its benefit, but it is not any good for actual fly casting.

Learn from others. Lefty Kreh, Joan Wulff, others. Go cast just by itself. Learn for yourself how to handle the line and the physics you need.
Recommend practicing fly casting year-round and anywhere, not just on the water.
Fish later.
It will be much more fun.
Guaranteed.

I remember noticing the same thing at the show in 2025.

 

[jeffroey]

I appreciate the post @afishinado. I've been doing this a long time and acknowledge casting and line management are my biggest weaknesses.

A lot of what Dom was demonstrating re: how not to do it are often the positions I find myself in during a cast and a hook set.

I'm scheduled off next week and doing a bit of a factory reset by spending it spending it on the water - 8 small stream plans in 3 counties I'm looking to check off my list next week. I'm promising myself I'm going to focus on "elbows in" this coming week.

 

[Mike]

It is rare that I see references to Coplay Creek on any forum. Hokendauqua park is a block from my home of forty-five years. At one time you could count on catching holdover stocked trout. Today that isn't the case, as the creek runs warm in summer as it sometimes runs dry due to sinkholes upstream of the park.

And its once Class B wild brown trout population has diminished based on electrofishing survey work. The results of the last survey that I’m aware of and attended were pretty pathetic although I still reliably catch them hook and line in one specific one-third mile stretch. There apparently is another isolated population well upstream near Schnecksville.

 

[poopdeck]

I don't believe Joe has ever hid that he taught to cast to catch fish, not to look graceful.

That’s what I do. I don’t know what any of the casting names given to casting mean. Some I can figure out like the bow and arrow. Tuck, crash, roll, double overhaul, blah blah blah, I have mostly no idea and I do not google them to learn them in my backyard. I’m surely not paying someone to teach them to me. Instead I just go out and put the fly where I want it however I can with no concern about poetry in motion, what it looks like or physics. Sometimes I catch fish and sometimes I don’t but I never stress over either outcome. Being a simpleton has its advantages.

 

[vern]

The "thumb squeeze" is good not just for short casts, it also useful for medium and longer casts.

IMHO, it's just part of normal fly casting.

Way back in the day, people said "don't break the wrist" i.e. keep the wrist locked. But they also recommended practicing casting holding a book against your body with your elbow. Both things restrict movement, limiting your casting ability.

On the forward cast, you start with your arm and rod behind you, after making the backcast, and as your arm moves forward it is accelerating (gaining speed). With the "thumb squeeze" you break the wrist, rotating your hand forward. It's a "kicker" at the end of the casting stroke that creates additional acceleration that creates great line speed.

So, the casting power is coming not only from the movement of the arm, but also from the movement of the wrist.

Think about a baseball player throwing the ball, or a tennis player hitting the ball, or a basketball player shooting a long shot.

They don't keep the wrist locked. You get much more speed if you incorporate the wrist movement.

Joe's casting technique for small streams/short casts in large water is effective, but limited.
The hard squeeze is a compromise between casting efforts.

The use of the elbow up through the forearm and continuing up through the rod provides the best alignment of the rod to body for all casting techniques.
The rod can be and mostly should be used as such to provide best line control and casting distance.
It uses the entire rod and provides a broader field of application.

The wrist/squeeze technique gives results in great use for short drifts and tight casting tunnels.
But fishing and casting with the entire rod provides the delicacy of casting fine lines and small flies. It is different. Precision is different. Even when fishing thick bank overhangs. The results are more precise.
(In some instances the Squeeze can be used to but it does require stopping the cast in the air and allowing it to retract and create meanders when it falls to the water surface.)

Drifting flies along the edge of a watercress clump using small gauge tippet and creating upstream facing and tippet floating above the fly to keep the tippet away from touching the trout's mouth or dragging the fly requires use of the entire rod.
Using total rod casting is more precise and allows for a much greater range of applications, as well as precision.
Total rod casting is essential to attempt to attract the interest of a wild trout that has been caught and released several times, and even to make casts in the same water Joe is fishing.

The squeeze-pop can get the fly there - in the vicinity - but the "pop" of the Joe cast doesn't quite get there.
It makes for a straight, tight leader and tippet cast. A cast that can work for short casts and different habitat to compensate for the line control and heavy handling of the rod that is not part of the normal fly casting total.

It's a shorter distance, lower precision casting.

The squeeze does not use a fly rod as a complete fly rod.
When doing the squeeze pump the energy doesn't make it to the tip of the rod. It comes up short - a couple to several inches.
While this does compensate for casting finesse it doesn't do well for the flyrod nor casting long or crossing multiple flows.

What is happening with the squeeze-pop is that the energy going down the rod puts a heavy bend in the rod - several inches below the tip, at a section that is not built for handling that constant energy force.
It can increase breaking rod tips.
The force bends the rod short of the rod tip.

Here's one other thing. Rod vibration and increased line to rod contact.
Friction.
When the squeeze-pop is used the rod vibrates rapidly immediately and creates a series of waves on the fly line, especially the lower line down from the bend that leads the way.

Look back through the video to the slow-motion segments displaying casting. Look at the rod tip and the fluctuations of the line coming from the rod tip - the bottom of the curl.
It is easy to see the up-and-down waves in the rod and line caused by the squeeze-pop.
Know that those fluctuations create resistance - friction - lots of it. At the top eye and down through the other guides. That friction of the line against the rod itself and the guides impedes repeated accuracy, distances and abilities for handling the lines.

The squeeze-pop use has many uses, but it is not how fly casting is best performed outside of its arena.

All of fly casting requires a sudden stop of the forward force in the line, and the resulting immediate curl coming from the rod - the loop - that carries the energy to the fly.
And that requires getting the tip of the rod out of the way.
The tilt in the forward and backward casts are just for that.
Getting the rod tip out of the way.
The increased speed and control of the rod just prior to creating the loop doesn't need a "pop".
A little movement forward or backward keeps the line from crashing into the rod.

A well-made flyrod doesn't fluctuate much - with or without a line, but best when casting matched to the right line weight.

The squeeze-pop provides a consistent size loop and a consistent thing to cast. Accurate enough for many streams and short-cast situations. But not as many, nor as precise as possible.

The squeeze-pop wrist movement is a combination of stopping the rod stroke and getting the tip of the rod out of the way of the line coming forward.

Getting the rod tip out of the way is necessary for all of fly casting, whether fishing/casting with the rod as a total casting tool or altering casting.
But snapping the loop forward isn't the best for all conditions. It certainly isn't the best for determining the best rod to cast with, IMO.

So, IMO casting should be taught as a whole rod approach.
The squeeze-pop can be taught later.

By the way, yes, the squeeze is part of casting - it is part of recovering control grip of the rod, but it is better considered as part of casting with the entire rod, not just a portion of the rod, and better for accuracy and drift presentation.

Check out Joan Wulff's casting info. She also teaches a standard forward and then get the tip out of the way casting technique.
But she uses her index finger for accuracy guidance. Joe uses a thumb-pop for accuracy as well.
Joan's technique uses the entire rod and the lengths of the line to cast. The other doesn't.

(Personal experience and interpretation: Baseball pitching. Sorry. But it didn't work that way.
Pitching a baseball is performed by the legs, waist and torso, as well as pectorals and laterals. The hand is the end of the energy flow. The hand and grip determines the spin of the ball and when to let it fly. It determines the grip, the resistance, but the speed of the ball gets some, but little, influence by snapping the wrist. Especially to go from 80 mph to 91 mph.
For metaphorical purposes, the human body is the rod, the arms are the flyline and the hand is the tippet and the fly.)