“Fishing the hang” is a simple trick for getting following fish to hit your fly. Here’s how to do it

We’ve all experienced it, the tap, swirl or flash of colour made by a fish trying to eat your fly—at the exact moment you pull it away for your next cast. This kind of agonizing near-miss is especially common when fishing a sinking line in still water. At the end of a long retrieve with no strikes, you’re understandably eager to make a fresh cast, but then end up kicking yourself for doing it a split-second too soon.

For 20 years, I thought this was just an inevitable, exasperating part of fly fishing. It’s not. There’s an astonishingly simple and effective technique called “fishing the hang” for hooking those last-moment biters. Here’s why it works, and how to do it.