CI written exam practice questions · a card
When would the PULD (Pickup and Laydown) cast be used?
It is both a fishing cast — presenting the fly or changing direction slightly without false casting — and the foundation cast that teaches every overhead cast how to start and stop.
The PULD is both a fishing cast and a teaching cast, and the exam wants both answers.
On the water it presents the fly and makes small changes of direction: it picks the line up off the water and lays it back down on the same fish or the same lie, without a false-casting sequence. The guide’s PULD lesson plan gives its purpose as simply presenting the fly to a fish or slightly changing the direction of the cast.
As a teaching cast, Task 17 calls it a basic fly fishing cast, a foundation for other casts, and an efficient way to learn how to begin and end them. Every overhead cast uses the elements the guide lists for the PULD: initial line organisation, initial rod tip position, the lift, backward acceleration to a stop, a pause, forward acceleration to a stop, and lowering the rod tip to the water following the line down. Teach the PULD first and every later overhead cast is a variation of it.
Source
From the CI Study Guide (2025) (PDF) — Task 17 and the Appendix C PULD lesson plan; terms from the FFI Fly Casting Definitions.