Special Castings to Control Depth

There are casting adjustments and corrections to be applied to the standard contact nymphing casting, but there are also specific casting techniques that can help control sink speed to a greater extent. For instance, to fish shallow or flat water or when fishing deep pools or runs, it is necessary to use a different cast from the very beginning. In these situations, the tuck cast and the flat cast are the techniques to consider.

Tuck casts create slack, allowing the flies to hit the water quite vertically and with a slack tippet behind them. This cast places the flies at the bottom of the stream very quickly and is made by an abrupt rod stop that bounces the nymphs back when they reach the leader limit. The flies drop in a vertical path, followed by a slack tippet. You can vary the stop angle to get the flies to the bottom at different depths, stopping the rod higher for more depth and lower for less depth.

Tuck Cast

If decreasing the sink rate is needed instead, the cast must be made in a way that doesn’t create any slack on the tippet. The tippet and leader must land horizontally and parallel to the water to increase surface tension forces. The way to execute this cast is simply to stop the rod low and keep dropping the rod point at the same speed that the leader is descending into the water.