My good friend, Slack | Hatch Magazine
February 14, 2026 
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“Slack is evil.”
Admittedly, this oft-recited fly fishing mantra has always hurt me a little. As someone who does the vast majority of his fishing with streamers, Slack and I have grown close over the years. From murderous musky eats to impossibly subtle subsurface smallmouth inhalations, Slack has been there all the way, playing a pivotal role.
If we have to call it something, I prefer “Slack is the devil,” because in the case of Slack, the devil is in the details. Though it can undoubtedly cause ill effects in casting, line management, and fly manipulation, to get the most out of your streamer fishing — and fishing in general — it’s essential to understand slack as a presentation element and learn to master its benefits, without falling victim to its destructive qualities.
Following are a few points to consider for building a cooperative relationship with slack and elevating your streamer fishing capabilities.
No Sissy Stripping
Sissy stripping isn’t about the length of your strip or the speed with which you make it. It’s about the spirit of the thing.
When fishing flies that are designed to kick, glide, or die–to do something erratic other than jig up and down–slack in your retrieve is absolutely imperative. Think about Drunk and Disorderlies, Sluggos, and Bufords. In these “swim flies,” it’s how the fly’s head design interacts with water that drives the fly’s behavior, and that head can’t turn or face anywhere other than straight down the leader and fly line if there’s no slack in the system. Thus, whether you’re manipulating your fly through rod tip movement or some magnitude of fly line pull, every animation should introduce some amount of slack into the line for maximum swim.
To achieve this, you need to suddenly overcome the inertia of that head in the water. That means crisp, sharp manipulations, much like a proper casting stroke–accellerating smoothly to a crisp stop. If there is enough relative density built into the head of the fly, the forward momentum created by such a strip will cause the fly to overcome the tippet, introducing momentary slack, and allowing the fly to perform, while drifting naturally and appearing untethered to a waiting angler. A timid, soft strip rarely achieves this.
Here is where some experimentation needs to occur. Every fly behaves differently and requires different amounts of animatory power to fish optimally. While wedge-headed flies like Tommy Lynch’s Drunk and Disorderly perform best with extremely short, choppy line pops, an 18-inch musky fly will require much more focused energy. It is very possible to both under-manipulate and overpower any given fly, and it’s the angler’s job to find the sweet spot.
In some instances, it may be beneficial to use the rod tip to accentuate the strip and return slack to the system. To do this, with your rod angled down towards the water, pump your rod toward your feet while making your strip. Then drift your rod tip back towards the fly during the pause.
Mind Your Rod Tip
As important as recurring slack is for gleaning every bit of action that you can from your streamer, where that slack is within the system is just as important. One of the biggest mistakes I see streamer anglers make is overlooking the slack that exists right at their rod tip.
Almost always, when I’m fishing a streamer, particularly from a boat, my rod position is angled down, with the rod tip either in, or just barely above, the water, pointed in the direction of the fly. The goal is to minimize any slack between the line hand and the fly, so that when action is imparted to the fly, all of the energy is transferred directly to it, and momentary slack is introduced on the fly end.
Raising the rod tip a few feet above the water creates a belly of line that hangs from the tip to the water, and that belly will dampen the energy transmitted by the strip, as well as reduce your ability to detect a strike.
Photo: Matt Reilly.
Understand Drag and Current
One of the greatest presentation hurdles that fly anglers have to consider is the drag that comes when fishing a fly line in current. Understanding how drag influences your fly’s behavior, and making a tactical decision about the role slack needs to play to achieve your intended presentation, is paramount to effective streamer retrieves.
When fishing flies designed to glide side to side or perform some degree of a head kick, drag should be avoided. As mentioned in the first section, slack is absolutely necessary to allow the head of such a fly to deviate from a straight path, and constant line tension caused by drag will not allow for it.
I see this most commonly while fishing flies like Double Bufords and Galloup’s Bangtail, and as a guide, always aim to maintain what I call “neutral boat control” relative to the river’s current to get the best swim from my flies, and thus, the most eats. This means matching the current speed you’re fishing with the boat while making casts perpendicular, or even slightly upstream, of the boat. This allows the fly line to be free of drag, and allows your flies to turn sideways in the current following a sufficient animation. The second your line begins to swing, your flies will begin to track straight. The same concept applies while fishing on foot.
If the water you’re fishing makes it impossible to avoid a swing in your presentation, choose flies with designs that shine under constant tension, like Gamechangers and anything with a synthetic curly tail or long, flowing feather tail.
Photo: Matt Reilly.
Dead Drifting and Depth
In some scenarios, dumping slack out of the rod tip may be the ticket to achieving a good presentation. When fishing neutrally buoyant or slow-sinking baitfish patterns in conflicting currents with the intent to dead drift them and achieve depth, it’s often necessary to throw slack into the line to avoid drag, as a swinging fly under constant line tension tends to ride up in the water column.
Anytime this is done, however, you should have a method of detecting a strike, be it watching the tip of a highly-visible floating line as a strike indicator; a visual on the fly itself; or intermittent “checking” of the fly through short, sharp strips to determine if it’s been taken by a fish. In the event of a detected eat, the slack must be quickly removed and the hook set by several quick strips.
Overall, slack plays about as many positive roles as it does negative in streamer fishing, and those looking to up their streamer game should become innately adept with all of them. Momentary slack, with a well-trained ability to intermittently eliminate that slack, properly animate the fly, and assess for a strike, is the name of the game, along with a whole lot of creativity.