Like the Pile cast, the Wiggle cast is 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 and 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, and the basic rule is 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 is once again an issue.

An alternative way to the above method of creating your wiggles is to make uniformed circles 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 make.

 

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

A Wiggle cast works great when casting onto a downstream current and you can place the wiggles wherever you want them in relation to the differing speeds of flow, but what if your downstream path is hampered by overhanging branches? That's when your Pile cast comes into it's own, as you can set the Pile cast off form higher upstream and simply let it extend underneath the branches as it drifts downstream.

The disadvantage of both of these casts is that you have slack line to contend with if a fish takes. "Hey I think we can suffer that for the chance of a fish that we may have missed out on anyway".

 

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