Breath work
What does breathing have to do with fly-casting?
During a mindfulness session, the instructor suggested focusing on the pause between the inhalation and the exhalation of breath. That lasted about three breaths before I started thinking about the similarity to fly casting.
Here’s what occurred to me:
New casters often struggle with is stopping the rod on the backcast and forward cast, and pausing long enough for the line to straighten out.1 Helping them integrate that pause into their cast can be challenging.
Beginners tend to fling the line behind themselves and then quickly start the forward cast. The telltale snap of the whipping action is the result. I can show them the “windshield-wiper” motion, explaining this is not what a good cast looks like. The rod needs to stop on the back cast and forward cast.
I’ve tried a variety of ways to explain the stop and pause. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.
Here’s what I’m going to try next time:
I’ll ask them to focus on their breathing. It will sound something like this:
Take a breath in, hold it for a moment, then breathe out. Do it a few times.
Inhale smoothly, filling your lungs—sort of like you’re savoring a scent. Hold it. Then, smoothly exhale.
Feel how the inhale and exhale speeds up right at the end?
Compare that to breathing in and out quickly, like a dog panting. That feels frantic, right?
We want the first one. That smooth, focused breath is the fly cast.
Try it with the rod now.
Inhale smoothly on your backcast. Stop the rod and hold your breath—that’s your pause to let the line straighten.
Now, exhale smoothly on the forward cast. Stop the rod and hold your breath, let the line straighten while slowly dropping the rod tip to follow the line to the water.
Try matching your hand to your breathing.
When you're ready to make the next cast, repeat the breathing sequence.
I suspect by focusing on the pause in the breath, the pause in the cast will follow suit. We shall see.
Next time I fish, I’ll put it to the test. If you try it, let me know how it works for you.
This happens mostly on the back cast, as they can see what’s going on during the forward cast.
Good stuff, Tom--my dad woulda loved the comparison of scent savoring to methodical means of fly casting. Cheers! Bill~
Brilliant approach to teaching the pause. The crossover from breathwork to casting is something I've noticed myself when trying to stay calm during those first few tricky casts of the day. The part about feeling the speed-up at the end of each breath is kinda genius, because beginners genuinley don't feel that rod tip loading until its way too late.