What causes a tailing loop, and how do I fix it?

example@example.com (HookedLee) — Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A tailing loop is the fault where the fly leg drops below the rod leg and the two legs cross. On the water you see the leader and fly tuck under the line; in the air the loop looks like it closes on itself. It is the single most common fault in the CI exam and the easiest one to cure, because it always comes back to one question: what did the rod tip do?

What actually causes it

Three things put the tip on a dip:

Power applied too early. The rod bends hardest at the start of the stroke, so the tip travels in a concave path — down, then up. This is the classic cause. The fix is to start the stroke slowly and accelerate to an abrupt stop.
Too narrow a casting arc for the amount of line. The rod has to bend and unbend through a wide enough angle to keep the tip travelling in a straight line. With a lot of line out and a short arc, the tip dips.
Creep. After the stop, the rod drifts forward before the next stroke starts. That eats the arc you needed and turns a straight tip path into a concave one.

The FFI documents separate these into four causes, because creep on its own and creep combined with inappropriate power behave differently on the water: What are the four causes of a tailing loop? sets them out with the exam wording and the sources.

How to fix it

Slow the start. Begin the stroke with the hand barely moving and let the acceleration build. Say it out loud if it helps: slow, then fast.
Widen the arc until the fault stops, then narrow it again in small steps. A wider arc never hurts while you are learning.
Watch the stop. The stop should be abrupt and complete. The rod tip rebounds; if your hand keeps drifting, the tip dips and you are back in tailing-loop territory.
Check the line hand. Yanking line during the stroke has the same effect as adding power too early.

Practice drill

Lay a tape at 40 ft and false cast with a deliberately wide arc, watching only the loop. When the loop is smooth, narrow the arc two degrees at a time. The moment the tail returns, go back one step. Ten minutes of this is worth more than an hour of blind casting.

If you are preparing for the exam, the fault and its correction are described in the FFI’s own vocabulary — see FFI Fly Casting Definitions (2025 Edition) for tailing loop, concave tip path and creep, and The Double Haul for how the same tip-path rules apply when you add hauling.

What are the four causes of a tailing loop?

example@example.com (HookedLee) — Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A tailing loop is a loop whose fly leg dips and crosses the rod leg. Every one of them comes back to a single mechanical fact: the rod tip travelled a concave path — it dipped out of the straight line it should have tracked — and the fly leg follows the tip. Four causes put that dip there.

The root cause is always the tip path

The definitions call a tailing loop “a Loop with a Concave Fly Leg, which dips towards and crosses Rod Leg”, and a concave fly leg “a Fly Leg which is not Straight and dips toward Rod Leg”. The fly leg mirrors what the rod tip did, so looking for a cause always means looking for what made the tip dip.

The CI Study Guide states it as a rule: “A concave rod tip path is the root cause of all tailing loops. The concavity is caused by either using too small a casting arc, failure to smoothly apply force, or both.”

The four causes

1. A casting arc that is too narrow

The casting arc is the angle the rod butt turns through during the stroke — it has to be wide enough to keep the tip travelling straight for the amount of line you carry and the force you apply. In the Study Guide’s terms, this is the right amount of energy applied over too short a distance: “If that proper amount of energy is applied over too short a distance (narrow casting arc) there will be a tailing loop due to the resulting concave tip path.”

What it looks like: tails on both the forward and the back cast, worse the more line you carry. Stopping the rod too early narrows the arc without the caster noticing; the tip path rises through the deceleration and then dips. The Study Guide adds that stopping early is not a common problem with typical students — the arc is usually just too small for the line being carried.
The fix: widen the arc — a longer stroke, stopping later. Reducing force to suit the narrow arc only costs line speed, which is why widening is the real answer.

2. Inappropriate power application

Force has to be applied in the right amount at the right place in the stroke. The rod should bend and unbend smoothly, accelerating at roughly the same rate from the start of the stroke to the end. A sudden burst anywhere — a power spike — makes the tip dip and rise, and the fly leg dips with it.

The error to look for is the common one the Study Guide calls one of the two most common causes of tailing loops: accelerating the rod slowly at the beginning of the stroke and then quickly at the end. It shows up when a caster “gives it one” to find extra distance.

What it looks like: tails on the casts where you try harder, a rod that whistles or bounces at the stop, a loop that collapses only when you meant to push.
Worth knowing: the mirror-image error — very fast early, then slowing — would also cause a tail, but the Study Guide notes it is difficult to do and rare in students. It is not where practice time belongs.

3. Creep

The definitions call drag “moving rod tip in direction of next cast during Pause”, and creep “drag which contributes to a casting fault”. Between strokes the rod drifts forward toward where the next cast is going, and the caster does not feel it.

Creep does not bend the tip path on its own. It eats the arc: the next stroke starts from a narrower arc than the caster believes, which is what makes it the quiet setup for a tail.

What it looks like: the first casts are clean and later ones tail; the tail appears after a long pause — more line out, a fish rising, a moment’s thought — and disappears again once you get back into a casting rhythm.
The fix: stop the rod and leave it stopped. Many casters find it helps to think of the pause as part of the stroke rather than as a rest.

4. Creep combined with inappropriate power application

This is the combination, and it is the one that produces most tails on the water. Creep narrows the effective arc, the caster feels the cast going soft, adds force unevenly to compensate, and the tip path goes concave. Either fault alone might have got away with it; together they do not.

The Study Guide is explicit about the condition: “Creep (drag which leads to casting fault) can contribute to a tailing loop if drag results in too narrow a casting arc and the caster then applies power inappropriately.”

Telling them apart

What you see	Most likely cause
Tails on every cast, worse the more line you carry	Arc too narrow
Tails only on the casts where you try harder	Power application
First casts clean, later false casts tail, worse after a pause	Creep
Tails after a pause, and worse when you add power to fix them	Creep plus power
Tails on the forward cast after a stop that felt early	Arc narrowed by stopping early

What the exam asks for

Task 3 of the performance exam requires you to demonstrate a tailing loop and to say which cause you used. The standard is that it “must result from concavity of the rod tip path caused primarily by one of two common caster actions that result in tailing loops (improper force application and/or a casting arc that is too narrow)”.

Teaching Task 20 goes further: the candidate has to explain how creep might contribute to a tailing loop, which is the fourth cause above.

Fixing it

The correction depends on the cause, but the drill is the same: slow the start of the stroke, widen the arc until the tail stops, watch the stop, and keep the line hand quiet. What causes a tailing loop, and how do I fix it? works through the fixes, and What makes a loop tight? explains the arc-and-tip-path relationship in more depth.

Sources

CI Performance Exam 2025, Task 3 — demonstrate a tail and name the cause used; the wording above is from the exam document.
CI Study Guide 2025 (PDF, 2.4 MB) — the tip-path explanation, the two most common causes, and the Teaching Task 20 notes quoted here.
Teaching Task 20: teach the cause and correction of tailing loops.
FFI Fly Casting Definitions (2025 Edition) — Tailing Loop, Concave Fly Leg, Casting Arc, Drag and Creep; the same terms as cards: Tailing Loop, Creep, Casting Arc.
FFI Common Faults and Fixes (April 2026) — under “Excessive or Uneven Force”: “If force is applied erratically or is suddenly applied too hard at some point during the casting stroke, the rod tip will dip and rise, causing a dip in the fly leg and perhaps a tailing loop.”

Faults on HookedLee