Border Game Angling

Like the Pile cast, the Wiggle cast can be used when casting to a fish that is rising directly downstream of you, it is simply a slightly different technique.

At the end of your forward stroke, after the stop, simply Wiggle your rod tip from side to side, the size of the wiggles you need to create will be dictated by the speed of flow you are faced with, therefore, the bigger the wiggles in your fly line, the longer they will take to straighten out.

So if you have a fast downstream current to overcome, it is no good making very small wiggles as they will be straightened out very quickly by the flow and will not afford your fly much time to act naturally before drag becomes an issue.

If you have a slow downstream flow to overcome, creating very big wiggles can also be an issue, as your target fish may often take your fly whilst still having lots of slack line to deal with.

Gauge the size of wiggles you think will be relevant to the speed of flow for a successful outcome.

Alternative method

An alternative way of creating your wiggles is to make uniformed circles with your rod tip directly in front of you after the rod tip stops in the forward cast. This will also give you neat wiggles of line on the water downstream of you, either large or small, dependant on the size of circles you describe with your rod tip.

Strangely enough, you will also find, by moving your rod tip up and down after the stop in the forward cast you will also create wiggles of fly line on the water, so experiment with all of these techniques and it won’t be too long before you are proficient with them all and they are assisting with catching more fish.

So when might we need a Wiggle cast as apposed to a Pile cast?

A wiggle cast works great when casting onto a downstream current and yes you can make the wiggles any size you want them to be to combat the differing speeds of flow, but what if your downstream path is hampered by very close overhanging branches?

That’s when your Pile cast comes into it’s own, as you can set the Pile cast off from much higher upstream than the wiggle cast, simply allowing it extend underneath the branches on its downstream journey.

The disadvantage of both of these casts is that you will have slack line to contend with when a fish takes (unless it takes at the end of the drift). “Hey I think we can suffer that for the chance of a fish that we may have missed out on anyway”.