On the face of it this may sound a fairly odd lesson. Surely you simply put the line into the water. Well you could do that, but one of the big mistakes that fly fishing beginners make is to put too much line in the water. The reason this is a problem is that it causes the line to be difficult to move about and therefore it becomes nearly impossible to perform proper casting moves. Or to put another way your line is going to get tied and wrapped up in an embarrassing knot.

The solution is to only put the minimum amount of line into the water that is necessary to get the fly into the path of the fish. You line will remain free and flexible and be ready for any of the casting techniques that you want to undertake.

As ever, this sort of think is best to illustrate by way of a video, so here goes. Watch this video a couple of times (its only short) and you will see what is required.

This sort of technique you can practice away from the river. You can use a local lake, a pond or even a swimming pool to get the feel for this point. Its worth practicing and getting it perfect before moving onto the casting techniques.