Kalyn Hoggard | Monday, 16 June 2025
Like any good professional, I’m going to attempt to convince you that the sport of MY choosing is not only the best sport ever, but it is also good for your mental health. Not only should everyone tie the fly, cast the fly, and fish the fly, but your mental health might be better if you did, or at least I think so. I’ve always had my struggles with stress and anxiety. When I was younger basketball and fishing always seemed to be my outlet. If I can mindlessly perfect my technique or mindfully try to trick fish into eating some feathers on a hook, then I can let go of everything else and really focus.
I can probably tell you exactly what cast I was working on, or exactly what type of fishing technique I was using during a multitude of stressful moments in my life. I have gotten to the point now that I need to have a rod with me all of the time, just in case. This necessity reminds me of a part in the movie “Mending The Line,” where a character is working on having a full panic attack. He rushes to get his rod put together just in time to stave off the breakdown. I’m not certain that I am quite to that point, but I’m not far off. I did tell my wife that if anything bad ever happens, and she needs to be in a hospital I will be there in spirit, but most likely casting in a parking lot or fishing carp in a pond nearby. I just don’t deal with that sort of stress well.
Believe it or not, this idea of fly tying, fishing, and casting being used as a therapeutic outlet is not uncommon here in the United States. From drug rehabilitation and people coping with cancer to veterans and northern folk suffering from seasonal depression, many aspects of fly fishing have helped people let go of other thoughts and focus. I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to volunteer for groups like these. Now, I wouldn’t be so bold to say that I personally have saved lives with fly fishing, but I know that I’ve forced people to use some smiling face muscles that they hadn’t used in a long time. As far as I’m concerned, that’s enough for me to continue to help in any way that I can.
It just so happens that this interplay between stress and casting is happening for me right now. My father was in a horrible accident last week. The family and I have been camping out in the closest trauma hospital they could fly him to for the last several days. We’ve been waiting and hoping for several different things to work out in his favor over this time, and ,as you guessed, I’ve been casting.
The first thing I have to figure out is exactly where is the closest possible place that I can cast and not get yelled at. I don’t want to cast too far away, and risk not being able to make it back in time. For example, I have plenty of room in the main lobby of this hospital to work on medium distance casts, maybe some single hand spey, certainly ICSF accuracy, and many other forms of ribbon dancing, but it is quite likely that they would kick me out before I got my rods strung up. So, we will have to be outside. I really like front lawns in cities. Out in front of a bank, hospital, or insurance company you are likely to find some high quality grass that is well manicured, and you will also have a pretty solid chance at some wind block.
I found a nice square piece of grass in the parking lot here. It’s not big enough for me to work on max carry or 5 wt distance, but I can throw 80 feet or so without too much issue. As long as you can stomach the words from the many passersby like, “Catch any yet?” “Whatcha fishing for?” “I know a way better spot,” then it’s not too bad. My answers in order are: Always, Anything, and I bet you don’t. As you can imagine, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to come up with better responses, but I haven’t had the energy for that this week. On the other hand, I do get some positively honking horns and fist pumps, and an occasional, “Hell Yeah Brother!”
Throughout the years of casting in places that the normal public can see me I’ve gotten a wide range of advice, and the advice has always been quite useful. “A guy at the fly shop told me you should always cast with your pointer finger on top, and point to your target.” “You may not realize this, but you are probably getting a bunch of sand in your reel.” “You know that trout harvest is closed right?” “I’ve seen you come out here for years now. You still can’t figure out how to cast that rod?” “I heard you need the water to be able to cast a fly rod right.” “Another empty stringer?”
This week I’m focusing on play. I really want to develop a trick casting routine of some sort or another. Paul has me grinding away at the Svirgolato. I’m starting to get the hang of it. I always have a short session of long and slow false casting. I’ll try to get somewhere between 50 and 60 feet of line out and really focus on making the loop barely turn over. That typically leads me to underpowered curve casts. If you play with underpowered curves with the rod in the vertical enough, then you can get some really nice candy canes at different distances and on different sides. Somewhere at this point the flow comes, and there is no telling where the day might take me casting wise. I usually end up somewhere between aerial single hand spey casts and aerial mends.
My last bit of rambling before I sign-off for this week. I’ve heard people describe really tight pointy loops as loops that could, “spear a sparrow.” Today, while I was out on my spot in the hospital parking lot, I did indeed hit a sparrow with the apex of my loop. Well, it looked like it was the apex, close to it anyway. Now, It did not go through the sparrow, but the loop was tight and pointy. I’d say I was spearing sparrows today. How bout that, a new trick shot idea…