Fly Fishing Insider Podcast
Rushing a shot at a visible fish is what produces wind knots, line wrapped around your feet and a slapped, spooked pool. Fly casting is a slow process, and forcing it collapses the stroke so the cast loses distance, control and aim. The fix is remembering there will be another fish, then breathing and casting deliberately.
Rob Kirsch is an interventional radiologist in Tarpon Springs, Florida, who came to fly fishing as an adult and now fishes almost entirely on the fly, from inshore flats to swung wet flies for trout.
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Why does slowing down catch more fish?
The pressure builds fastest for anglers who rarely get out, because the day is a special occasion and a visible fish feels like a shot that cannot be missed. That pressure is what produces a wind knot, line tangled around the feet, and a line slapped across the water that spooks every fish within 200 meters. Fly casting is a slow process - not glacial, but slow - and pushing it apart means the casting stroke falls apart and the cast has no depth, no control and no aim. Reminding yourself that another fish will come is the practical correction.
How do you cast fast without rushing?
Speed is genuinely required when a fish is swimming toward you and about to turn, so the answer is not simply casting slower. The basics have to hold: start slow, accelerate, stop. When they do not, the rod turns into a windshield wiper and the whole line lands in a heap eight feet in front of the angler. The same discipline applies to changing a fly quickly when a tarpon refuses three presentations - the hands move efficiently while the decisions stay methodical, or the knot fails and the shot is gone anyway. What slows down is the mind, not the movement.
When is hiring a guide worth the money?
Most of what an angler knows about a home river is place knowledge accumulated over years of visits - where the holes are, where the currents run, where fish are likely to sit. That knowledge does not travel. A guide who is on the water 250 to 300 days a year supplies it immediately, along with fly selection, technique suggestions and where to go next. On a drift boat fishery the guide is also selling access: renting a boat and running unfamiliar water yourself risks wrapping the boat on rocks the guide already knows about.
How do you get the most out of a guided day?
The preparation starts before the trip by pressing the guide for fly patterns and sizes, then tying for the trip - three of everything, one for a tree, one for a rock and one for a fish - even knowing that only one or two patterns in ten will get wet. On the water, take the advice without arguing in the moment, then ask afterward why the guide fished a spot that way rather than the way you would have. Every guide fishes a little differently, and that reasoning is what goes into your own toolbox.
Why is redfishing so different from one place to another?
On the Gulf Coast of Florida the water is crystal clear and two to seven feet deep, redfish are visible 40 to 50 feet away and are moderately spooky, so the fly lands 20 to 30 feet ahead of where the fish is heading, sinks, and gets twitched as the fish closes. In New Orleans the water is nearly opaque, a fish cannot be seen until it is roughly ten feet from the boat, and the fly has to hit it practically on the nose to be seen at all. Same species, two entirely different games, driven mostly by water clarity.
How do you deliberately widen the techniques you can call on?
One approach is to spend a full year fishing only one technique at home - in this case swinging wet flies for trout, with guided trips away from home as the only exception. That year taught which water is worth swinging, how to choose flies and set up a team of three wets without fouling them, how to fish downstream rather than upstream, and how to strip strike a trout instead of lifting the rod. Those skills transfer directly to swinging for steelhead or salmon in Washington State, where the flies and gear change but the swing speed and depth do not.
What is dock light fishing?
Dock light fishing runs from roughly eight or ten in the evening until two to four in the morning, working residential canals with underwater dock lights. Approaching one light, what looks like five sticks in the water turns out to be five snook of 24 to 29 inches; a bigger light can hold a dozen tarpon circling it. The presentation is a cast across the light and a strip back, and the complications are immediate - one such cast produced a four foot tarpon on an eight weight and a 25 minute fight spent keeping the line clear of the dock.
Key takeaways
- Take a breath before a shot at a visible fish; the rushed cast is what creates wind knots and spooks the pool.
- Keep the casting basics under speed - start slow, accelerate, stop - or the loop collapses and the line lands in a heap.
- Hire a guide on unfamiliar water for place knowledge and access, not just fly selection.
- Ask your guide for patterns and sizes before the trip, and tie three of each: one for a tree, one for a rock, one for a fish.
- Lead a Gulf Coast redfish by 20 to 30 feet and twitch the fly as it closes; in muddy New Orleans water put the fly on its nose.
- Spend a season on a single unfamiliar technique - swinging wets, for example - to build skills that transfer to steelhead and salmon.
- Strip strike a trout on the swing rather than lifting the rod.
