The proper way to cast is toward the front of the boat, often with a reach cast. This way you can have your leader and fly line land in the same ribbon of current as your fly. With some mending it is possible to get a drag free drift of well over a hundred feet at times. This will catch you many more fish and also cause far fewer mid air collisions with your buddy's line. When both fishermen keep their casts in the proper plane there is a much lesser chance of getting your lines crossed and the inevitable mess. This will keep you both fishing longer and hopefully catching more fish.
Another issue that all of us guides face from time to time is a fisherman who just has to cast as far as they can. Even though the rivers may be much larger than the trout water you are used to fishing more times than not, distance casting is very counter-productive from a drift boat. Your guide will bring the boat, and you, close to the fish. You should concentrate on short, accurate casts to get your flies where they need to be. Short, accurate casts will day in and day out catch more fish and bigger fish than long, flailing casts. (One exception to this is streamer fishing. Not to be confused with bugger chucking, which is slamming a big bugger tight to the bank and other structure.)
On bright, sunny days the fish are more concerned about not being eaten than they are in eating, at least when there is not a major hatch on. So, you need to get your flies in the right spot, every cast. Sometimes the right spot will be as close to a rock, log or an overhanging limb as possible. This means inches away, even bouncing the fly off of a rock. Other times the right spot will be along the seam lines.
When you are fishing a stretch of river with other boats accurate casts will win the day for you. If you consistently get your flies just a few inches closer than the other guys on the river do most likely you will catch more and bigger fish. Remember to focus on the small area of the river you are actually fishing. Make your target small and your cast short.
This leaves us with another huge factor that limits a fly fisherman's potential to catch more fish. The lack of timely mends causes the dry fly to drag prematurely which will very often cause an interested trout to turn away and swim for cover. When you add up all the drifts that were cut short from the lack of mending along with the corresponding repeat casts along with all that false casting you effectively loose a good deal of valuable fishing time. Additionally, the more often a dry fly gets dragged under from a poor drift the more often you will be false casting trying to dry the fly out to keep it floating. Repeatedly dragging the fly underwater will make it necessary to change it more often. All this takes time away from you that would otherwise be used actually fishing.
If there is a word that a guide needs to repeat the most day in and day out it is, mend. Another word that a guide wants very much to repeat is, strike! Look at it this way. The more times a guide needs to say, "mend", the less times he gets to yell, "strike!" Which would you rather hear your guide saying?
All of this advice comes down to one main point. That is to be as efficient as possible while in a drift boat. Since the boat is moving any time that your flies are not on the water is a lost opportunity, quite possibly a lost fish. All of these little things add up over the course of a day in more than just lost time. As the day goes on and a fisherman becomes aware of the lost opportunities and fish very often their frustration level goes up.
This is a bad situation that begins to feed on itself. A good guide will sense this frustration and stop the boat so their fishermen can relax, get a drink or do some wade fishing to get back on track.
The bottom line after it is all said and done though is to just have a good time. Maybe catch some fish and hopefully learn something. No matter how good or bad the fishing is do your best to make the float trip a learning experience. Take the time to soak in the surroundings and to watch an eagle fly by. The next time you fish from a drift boat things will come much more naturally, even the fish.
Fly-fishing from a drift boat is different from wade fishing in several key ways. First of all, when you are in a boat you will be moving downriver and you will have only one cast at each good looking spot. You need to think outside of the wade fishing box and program yourself to stay ahead of the boat by scanning the river ahead of you and planning your next cast and drift. In a moving boat you cannot take a great deal of time to analyze each piece of river.
Most everyone has fished a crowded river before, but being in a drift boat redefines the phrase, "Shoulder to shoulder fishing". Now you will be spending many hours casting repeatedly in very close proximity to two other sets of eyeballs and arms, necks, earlobes, etc. To fly-fish safely from a drift boat takes teamwork. Both casters need to be aware of what the other guy is doing. Having two fly lines in the air at the same time should be avoided, but this is almost impossible at times. The fisherman in the back of the boat has a bit more responsibility when it comes to taking turns casting since they should be facing and looking towards the front of the boat.
Perhaps the single most common cause of a potentially dangerous situation as far as casting goes is when the caster starts the cast with the rod too high and or slack line on the water. This causes the line, leader and the fly to come headlong into the boat and the people onboard. When you add a heavy streamer or a nymph rig into the equation the potential for a fly in the skin goes way up.
The proper and safe way to start any cast, whether in a boat or wade fishing, is to get the rod tip low (sometimes to the water) and all the slack out of the line. Now, as soon as you begin the back cast the line, leader and fly will be moving and coming up off the water. The cast is completed with the speed up and stop of the rod tip. Now your back cast will be high, over the heads and eyes of everyone on the boat.
The angle that you make your cast, relative to the boat, is vitally important in a drift boat. One of the most common and problematic casting errors is to cast behind the boat. This is especially true when fishing dry flies. When you cast behind the boat you will get almost instantaneous drag on your fly. This happens because the boat will be in a faster current than your fly. Your fly line and leader will also land partially in this faster current. Your fly line will then pull your leader and your fly underwater, thus ending a very short drag free drift. The faster the current speed is the more quickly this will happen.
The other pitfall to casting behind the boat is that you will not see the next great looking spot until it is too late. Just as you remind yourself to turn around and look ahead of the boat you see a perfect spot go by. So you make just one more cast behind the boat. Then you see the next hot spot go by and make one more last cast behind the boat. It is far better to take a deep breath, get a grip on the situation and let one or two spots go by as you turn around to face and cast forward. You then will be ready to fish the water coming at you much more efficiently and effectively.
