Arm Assisted Wrist Cast is the one I use when making the “Flick,” “Flick” style cast. This style developed after fixed rings were added to our rods. Because the line slides up and down easily in fixed rings (guides), stopping the rod in the vertical position with the simple Wrist Cast allows line to slide back down through the guides. When this happens, the loose line in the guides makes it impossible to keep constant tension on the line, and power application to the line is greatly hindered. So, anglers would lift their arm until it was about 30 degrees above the horizontal, and then make the standard Wrist Cast.

It is still a “Flick,” “Flick” cast. With the arm held firmly 30 degrees above the horizontal, the rod flicked into the backcast and then flicked into the forward cast. In so doing, the rod is flicked back 30 degrees behind the vertical. This is a simple matter of geometry. Since the rod is at right angles to the forearm at the completion of the backcast, and the forearm is lifted to 30 degrees above the horizontal, the rod must, therefore, be shifted to 30 degrees behind the vertical. This position helps prevent the line from sliding downward in the guides when the rod is stopped on the backstroke.

Arm Assisted Wrist Casting was the next step in the evolution of casting. In this style, the forearm is not held fixed at 30 degrees above the horizontal before the Wrist Cast is made. Rather the forearm starts in the horizontal position, and as the wrist is flicked back, the forearm is simultaneously lifted until it is 30 degrees above the horizontal. This arm movement is so integrated into the rearward flick that the lift and wrist flick end at precisely the same moment.  Again, this is “Flick,” “Flick” casting, not rod waving. Done with the “Flick,” “Flick” movement, it will toss even a very short line (I do this when casting just the leader, for example) in very tight loops, fast and accurately.

Arm Assisted Wrist Casting is the style of most anglers who have not had some formal training. This style has one great disadvantage and several other attendant disadvantages. The primary disadvantage is that the rod cannot be lifted more than 30 degrees above the horizontal. If it is, the rod tip sweeps much too far back, tossing the line in a huge arc that crashes into the ground behind the angler. The second major disadvantage that occurs during Wrist Casting or Arm Assisted Wrist Casting is the inability to shoot line to lengths much beyond 50 feet. In the early days of fly fishing, this was not a problem. But with our current equipment, 50 feet is only “normal” casting distance.

So, very quickly, anglers began to develop “Arm Casting,” in which the arm is employed as the major generator of force during the casting stroke. This new development lead to distance casting tournaments, and a heave, in 1899, of 133 feet by the president of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Casting Club, Walter Mansfield. He also made an astonishing cast of 129 1/2 feet with a 5 oz. fly rod during a 1902 tournament (this would be equivalent to a 6-weight system). Both were quite amazing feats for the day. Coming next in several parts—Arm Casting.

On the backstroke the arm is stopped sharply 30 degrees above the horizontal.

Lifting the rod more than 30 degrees above the horizontal throws the tip much too far back.