Inside this lesson

1. Why roll cast?
2. Waterborne casts and anchors
3. Basic roll cast mechanics
4. The D-loop
5. Variations on roll cast mechanics
6. Common roll cast problems and troubleshooting
7. Essential equipment to practice your roll casts
8. The Belgian cast
9. Advanced applications
10. Additional resources

If you're an absolute beginning fly caster, the roll cast might be the most valuable cast you can learn to get you out and fly-fishing immediately. It's less complex than an overhead cast, requiring a step or so fewer in the process, but can get you started just fine.

It's a little less versatile, so it won't serve you in every fishing situation, but if you're setting up on the edge of a pond or a river, it works great.

Why roll cast?

The beauty of the roll cast is it lets you to cast effectively when there's no room for a back cast. When you've got trees or thick brush behind you, or you're fishing from a cramped bank, the roll cast will be your weapon of choice.

The roll cast also forms the foundation for many advanced two-handed spey casting techniques, and has great utility functions in laying fly line in front of you to start an overhead cast, or lifting a sunken fly line at the end of a drift.

💡 Key Point
The roll cast isn't just a backup cast. For many anglers, it becomes their primary casting technique in brushy streams and rivers.

Waterborne casts and anchors

The roll cast belongs to a family of fly-fishing casts known as a "waterborne" casts. Meaning the cast is initiated with the line on the water.

This is the opposite to a standard fly cast (an overhead cast); it's not airborne. With an overhead cast, you create line speed off the water with the pickup, yes, and then your arm, as expressed in forming the overhead loop, is what loads the rod, adds energy, and puts a bend into it.

With a roll cast, along with its cousins in the two-handed and Spey casting world, we're using the surface tension between the line / leader and the water's surface to load the road, and put the energy into it, that ultimately results in the cast going forward.

🧠 Remember
To execute a proper roll cast, you need surface tension to load the rod.

In these waterborne casts, parts of our fly line and leader become an "anchor," meaning the surface tension between water and line does most of the work to load the rod.

Much of what we are mindful of, mechanically, in the roll cast is "setting the anchor." We want our lines positioned properly, to then transfer energy most efficiently.

Take a look at this excellent excerpt from Epic's "Casts That Catch Fish" video series, wherein its founder and casting instructor Carl McNeil describes the roll cast:

I strongly recommend the whole "Casts That Catch Fish" video, it's a great casting resource.

Basic roll cast mechanics

The roll cast combines three separate movements into one smooth motion.