Of all the  line pickups (did you catch that) (yes, puns intended) the “C” Pickup is perhaps my most favorite. It allows the angler to clean the line smoothly off the surface and dry a fly if needed, without the need for  a false cast.

Here’s a description of the “C” Pickup from our forthcoming book, Fishing the Film.

Lift the rod up to about 45 degrees above the horizontal and then very quickly flip the tip around in a half circle (the “C”) and immediately into a back cast. Start the tip movement at the top of the “C,” and at the bottom of the “C” lift the rod into the back cast. The “C” will rip down the line to the tip and pop the fly cleanly out of the water. One can make the “C” in either direction, to the left (a normal “C”) or to the right (a backward “C”). This is actually so efficient that I basically use it every time I cast, regardless of the tactic or fly being used. It’s superb when fishing up, across, or down.

Now for some qualifications. Not too many, but, one can make the “C” very large, very small, or very in-between. One can make the “C” very fast or very slow. At the end of the “C,” the line is lifted into a normal Back Cast. The “C” Pickup is certainly not new to fly fishing. Skues wrote about it in “Nymph Fishing for Chalk Stream Trout,” noting:

You move your rod-top briskly out to the right and then up and round in a rapid forward curve to the left. This picks the heaviest part of the line and, bellying it in a long single curve, lifts it into the air, leaving but the gut on the water, whence it should be picked off for the back cast before any part of the line has time to fall back to the water. This puts the minimum of strain on the rod, and in the forward cast, the nymph and the fine end of the gut are delivered with the least possible amount of drying, to the fish.

This is certainly a “C” Pickup, but Skues made it from bottom to top rather than from top to bottom. I make it top to bottom so that the rod is in a lower position at the end of the “C,” hence providing more room to lift the rod into a Back Cast.

Now note the following, his rapid movement with a soft cane rod would be considered slow with today’s graphite sticks. So, making a big, slow movement makes a big, slow “C” that can pickup a nymph without drying it. A real fast, small “C” will pop all the water right out of a dry fly; this makes a very good way to pick up a dry fly and recast without having to false cast to dry the fly. Practice large and slow, large and fast, small and slow, small and fast, “C’s,”and everything in between. This one is worth knowing.

The "C" Pickup. The solid line with arrow-heads represents the movement of the rod tip. The tip makes a "C" and then immediately goes into a standard back-cast