I rarely fish the traditional 45% down and across swing. It’s long been my view that fly speed plays a pivotal role in seducing an Atlantic Salmon to take your wet fly.
When I first started chasing salmon as a young boy, I watched other fishermen around me and developed the standard 45 degrees downstream cast and swing most guys employed.
There was fish hooked, of course, but over time, be it idleness of youth or a passion to figure out as much as I could about Atlantic Salmon, I began trying new approaches and casts. What I quickly discovered was, in most instances, salmon tended to take better with a little more speed on the fly swing.
Since those early days of discovery, I seldom make a wet fly cast today that I don’t use some type of mend, be it upriver or downriver to adjust my fly swing to the speed I’ve honed in on that works best for me.
If you watch me for a week, I doubt you’ll ever see me throw a downstream 45 degrees cast across the current that a lot of fishermen use in Atlantic Salmon fishing.
Most of my cast today are almost 90 degrees across the current. This gives me two things the standard 45 degrees cast doesn’t. It increases my window of opportunity to find a fish because I now am covering twice the area as a standard cast and should over time get my fly in front of more fish. It also allows me the time to decide the speed of the fly and I can adjust with up or down the river mends to my speed of choice. This can involve several mends during one swing.
In my view I want my fly swinging at a speed that shows itself nicely to any salmon but doesn’t give the fish a lot of time to study it. I guess it’s a reaction strike we could call it. I want the fish to see it move thru its views but have to decide very fast what they are going to do with it.
Atlantic Salmon fishing is all about experimenting, trying new approaches, new techniques and striving every outing to glean some new info that you might use on another day. Don’t box yourself into a particular mindset or belief.
I can honestly say on good days I stick with what’s working, that’s easy. But on tough days or in tough conditions I pull out all the stops from casts to mends to stripping my fly even faster and everything in between.
So, the next time you’re on a river try a nontraditional cast, work the water, use the knowledge you’ve no doubt picked up and I’m sure you’ll start having more success.
Be safe, keep 'em wet!
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