Trouble Casting!

Deadbolt,

Casting split and an indicator can be a challenge for even the most experienced fly-fisherman.  Its cantankerous, not natural and can lead to tangles.  Its a good thing to use a technique called "lobbing" in order to get your rig into the strike zone being that you have shot on the line it makes your setup heavier (obviously), so you wont want to use a tight loop like traditional fly casting, but rather use a big loop gathered from surface tension on the water.  When you make a cast, let the line drift through the strike zone, (hoping your fishing with room in open water), and gather some line in your left hand.  Lifting the rod up across your body and facing downstream it will cause the rod to "load" itself under the tension of the current.  Now its time to make the cast, when the rod is being loaded, simply make a nice easy stroke with an abrubt stop upstream while turning your body.  The result should be a nice floppy, open looped cast, be sure to mend upstream right after the cast as your fly line will usually be in front of your indicator....  SImply put you will want to slow down your casting stroke depending on how much shot you are playing with, it can be a challenge for everyone.  Rod action can make a difference too.

Roll casting shot (let alone an Indicator) is not simple, but not impossible.  The general rule of thumb I see most anglers doing is during the first part of the cast, they have the rod pointed straight up thus allowing no inertia to load the rod resulting in a pile of leader.  Bring the rod behind your shoulder at a little bit of an angle to get some of the fly line to load the rod, then really give it a snap forward.  This will garner a nice roll cast for you once you get the hang of it, but be sure to use that little trick of angling the rod behind your shoulder to load it, it makes all the difference in the world when you are casting shot/indicator/weighted flies. 

It really is kind of hard to explain exactly what I want to tell you on here, but I hope this helped a little bit. 

The longer the leader and lighter the tippet, the harder it is to roll cast with split shots and indicators.
 
If you're trying to cast a 12-13' leader with a long length of 5x tippet, it's not going to turn over well, if at all, with shot and a float.  Shorten it and use heavier tippet and it'll change everything.

thanks so much guys! I cast in my yard from time to time, Phone wires kinda make it hard but thats no excuse!

One question, that guy in the first video link said make sure your thumb is at your forehead, does height have any effect on this? I'm a rather tall guy and was just wondering.

Thanks for all the replies so far!

I don't know if the thumb at forhead thing is a technical point or just a rule of thumb. Given the differences of peoples wrist length to forehead placement, it might just be a rule of thumb.
 
I use it as a little guide to make sure that my humerus(upper arm) is level, and that my elbow is at about 90 deg., otherwise I have a tendency to lift my arm way up and realy slash the line. The result is a high popping line that piles up right in from of me.
 
 

Deadbolt, you just have to keep doing it and you'll get the feel for it....

Deadbolt,
 
One thing I gotta say is dont try to practice roll casting if you are not on the water. You just cant do it without you line on water.
 
Roll casting is definitley harder with shot and an indicator on your leader. In this case, do a standard cast, and put your backcast downstream away from the trees/brush, and put your forward cast upstream. 
 
 

Guys, I know everyone is near and far, but if you go to your local fly shop, they will likely be happy to help you with tricks for casting etc. That is what they mean by full service shop. Now on to the next thing....Spey rods are awesome, but for the local area, not very practical. I am saying this as someone with a great deal of experience with speys. I use them on trips to bigger water (All I used in Iceland and Patagonia, and sometimes in Quebec), but even on water like the Salmon and the Catt, I prefer a switch rod. To properly execute a spey cast, you need at least 5 feet of water behind you, and the casts are typically 50-100 feet. Keep in mind that unless you are doing scandanavian style spey casting, or underhand casting, the head on the line is at least 65 feet (just check with rio, if I remember right, the midspey line has a 65 head, and grand spey line has a 100+ foot head, not line, just head!!!). Yeah, they make short head spey lines, but those are not really for traditional spey casting. You also need a great deal more room downstream to properly speycast. If you like the longer rod, check out switch rods. 11 foot 7 wt is a great rod around here. Sage makes one, as does Winston. More brands do as well, those are just the ones I am familiar with. I like to fish them with rio outbound lines, 2 sizes up from the rod (ie. a 9wt line on a 7 wt rod). On that note, the best cast for around here for longer rods is the switch cast. It is very similar to a single spey, but a bit quicker, and very easy to learn. Tight lines all! One last note, check out speypages.com . Great site.
tight lines! Steve B

Deadbolt if you are in the Pittsburgh area I can help you out somtime on the stream around here

Again, thanks all for the help, I'm going up for a trip wednesday, and ill try all these techniques. And I'm not brining a noodler this time, I'm only usuing the fly. God help me!

and Vinest I do live in the pgh area. North hills to be exact

Your from NH too?

if so, shoot me a pm, theres a good chace we know eachother.