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As fly fishers, we are always in search of that silky smooth, effortless cast.  The incorporation of a proper line haul is vital in making casts with maximum efficiency.  So what exactly is a haul?  Well, one of these days I’ll get my act together and put some casting video on the website, but in the mean time I’ll try to explain it in words.  The haul is an accelerating pull by the line hand against the inertia of the fly line during the casting stroke.  To put it another way, the hand that is holding your fly line moves in an accelerating motion away from the rod’s stripping guide during the casting stroke.  The double haul is the application of the line haul on both the forward and backward casting strokes. 

 One of the biggest misconceptions that people have of the haul is that it is only useful for distance casting.  While the double haul is essential for extra long casts, it has many other benefits.  Here are a few common but incorrect reasons that people often give for not trying to learn the haul – “Most of my fishing only requires a 40ft cast” or “I can already cast 65ft and I don’t need to cast any farther than that.”    My response to the first statement would be, “would you like to make your 40ft casts more accurate?” and my response to the second statement would be, “would you like to make that 65ft cast in the wind while shooting the fly 10ft under a hanging tree limb?”  Both people undoubtedly answer yes to my question and the technique that they need to learn to reach their goal is the haul.  I find that a haul is an essential part to just about every cast no matter the distance.

Why does hauling work?  In order to understand what the haul does, I like to break the haul down into three different categories – haul speed, haul length and haul power.  Haul length and haul power are rarely discussed but I find them to be important concepts.  Many people mistakenly make every haul with the same speed, length and power but these are all variables that should change based on the desired cast.  Here are a couple quick examples.  A fast action rod making a long cast with lots of slack in the fly line requires a high haul speed, long haul length and the much haul power.  A slow action rod making a short cast with little slack in the fly line requires a slow haul speed, short haul length and little haul power. 

The most common answer that instructors will give you as to why hauling works is that the haul increases line speed (rate of travel of the fly line).  With increased line speed it is possible to throw tighter loops and carry more line in the air without the line falling to the ground.  For the efficient casts that we all strive to achieve, the highest haul speed should ideally coincide with the highest rod tip speed.  To say it differently, the greatest line speed occurs when both rod tip speed and haul speed are at their maximum at the moment the rod unloads.  The previous two statements introduce some concepts that I will not cover in this section, but I threw it out there to reinforce that the haul should be an acceleration that reaches its highest speed at the end of the casting stroke.  I’ll delve more deeply into rod load and rod tip speed at another time so it will all come together.  I find that fly casting is one fluid motion; however, in order to talk about it we have to try to break it down into separate entities which are actually all interrelated.  What I’m getting at is that it is hard to describe or understand a concept fully without bring up other abstract concepts… so I hope I haven’t confused you so far and if I have forget every word I’ve said!

It is widely accepted that haul speed influences line speed, but what about the effects of haul length and haul power on the cast?

Haul length is the distance that the line hand travels away from the rod’s stripping guide during the casting stroke.  The length of the haul is often determined by how much slack is in the fly line at the start of the cast – the greater the slack in the line, the longer the haul must be to remove the slack.  We can define slack as line without tension or the amount of line that does not straighten between the line hand and fly prior to the stroke.  We should always work toward lessening the amount of slack through better technique, but it is always present to some degree... yet another topic to cover at a different time but I felt the need to touch on it a little here to help with our understanding of haul length.  Understanding this concept helps answer why we need varying haul lengths for different casts.  In summary, Short casts require short haul lengths because there is usually little slack to be removed while in contrast long casts require large haul lengths because there is usually a lot of slack to be removed.

Haul power may be the most abstract and least discussed of the three categories of hauling so I will need to introduce more background information.  Power is the force (kinetic energy) that the fly caster applies which counteracts a fly line’s inertia.  The application of power puts a bend in the rod and this bend in the rod is called load.  By loading the rod, we are storing potential energy in the rod blank which is released at the stop of the casting stroke.  The casting stroke can be defined as the application of power by the rod hand, or said differently, the rod hand’s force that loads the rod.  Most of the power in a cast comes from the casting stroke, but some power is also applied through the line hand haul.  To prove that the haul power can load a rod, try this experiment.  Hold a fly rod with the tip pointed to the ground.  Have 20ft of line outside the rod tip extending along the ground at a 90 degree angle from the rod tip.  Make a fishing buddy stand on the end of the line or tie the line off to a stake in the ground so that the line will not move.  Make sure that all the slack is removed and then make a long haul.  You will find that the rod will bend from the force applied therefore proving that haul power influences rod load.  So what does this all mean?  Well, it means that haul power lessens the amount of power that must be applied by the rod hand for a given cast.  The rewards of haul power are many.  Haul power distributes the energy necessary to generate load over more muscles in the body, so casts become more effortless and less fatiguing.  I find that a 100ft cast with the incorporation of hauling requires nearly the same amount of power from my casting stroke as a 60ft cast without hauling.  For short casts this means that you can slow down the casting stroke and make the stroke shorter in length which will aid in casting accuracy.  It is important to note that you can over power a cast with too much haul power just as you can with too much rod hand power; it is all about matching the variables to achieve the desired outcome.  This is also why the haul must be an acceleration so as to apply the greatest power at the completion of the casting stroke.

Now, I will cover the antithesis of a haul.  I call it a negative haul.  While a haul increases line speed, removes line slack, and generates rod load; a negative haul does just the opposite.  A negative haul occurs when the line hand moves toward the rod’s stripping guide during the casting stroke.  Negative hauls usually occur on a caster’s forward stroke.  What happens most times is the caster either consciously or unconsciously moves his or her hand away from the rod’s stripping guide during the back stroke which is a good thing since the caster just completed some form of a haul on the back stroke.  The problem lies in what happens after that moment during what we call pause (for lack of a better word).  Pause can be described as the length of time between strokes or the length of time where the line unrolls/ straightens after the stop of the stroke.  The problem with the term “pause” is that it gives the idea of the caster being motionless and doing nothing while this is not the case.  Many things must happen during pause both with the rod hand and line hand in order to set up the upcoming forward stroke.  Since I am discussing hauling at the moment, we will for get about what the rod hand should do during pause and focus solely on the line hand.  So where were we? Ah yes…. The caster had just knowingly or unknowingly made some sort of haul on the back stroke and now finds his or her line hand down near the pants hip pocket.  What happens in a negative haul is the caster keeps the line hand at his or her side during pause and then brings the hand up toward the stripping guide during the forward stroke.  The result is a fly line that collapses to the ground well before the intended target – remember a negative haul introduces fly line slack, decreases line speed and negates rod load.  Here is what should have happened.  After the stop of the back stroke, while the fly line straightens, the casters moves/ drifts the line hand from the hip pocket back toward the stripping guide.  This repositioning, during pause, puts the line hand in a good place for a positive haul on the forward stroke.

In fly casting, timing is everything and the timing of the haul is no exception.  Starting and finishing the haul at the right time is critical in achieving the best results.  Many variables such as the amount of slack line and the length of the casting stroke determine the exact time the haul should start but it never should start before the casting stroke begins.  Starting a haul before the casting stroke begins is what I refer to as haul creep.   Haul creep is simply a premature haul and a result of poor timing.  Starting the haul too early usually translates into stopping the haul too early, as well.  Haul creep can lead to several casting flaws, one of which is the dreaded tailing loop.

Another haul timing problem is continuing the haul after the stop of the casting stroke.  I don’t have a catchy term for this… any ideas?!  The result is a poor cast because of lost energy from the stroke and a line loop that is ripped open (big loops… bad!).  Remember that the haul should reach maximum speed at the moment the rod tip reaches maximum speed at the stop of the casting stroke – to be precise at RSP (rod straight position) during stop, but we won’t go there today.

Now we know when a haul should stop, but that brings us back to the question of when it should really start.  Well, let’s review that a haul is an accelerating pull on the fly line away from the rod’s stripping guide.  I know that this sounds like a cheap answer, but the haul should start at a time that allows for top haul speed to be reached at the moment the rod unloads at the stop of the casting stroke.  Variables such as haul length determine the exact the starting point of the haul.  Long hauls need to start early during the casting stroke than short ones.  Another factor that comes into play is the rate of haul acceleration.  A slowly accelerating haul would need more time to reach top speed and would need to start earlier in the casting stroke than a quickly accelerating haul.

In conclusion, none of this mumbo jumbo does us any good unless we put into action.  I’m tired of writing and I know you’re tired of reading this stuff, so let’s go outside and sling some string!!!