In a DFA scanning engine used to match regular expressions or similar rules, instructions to execute DFA state transitions are accessed through an instruction cache. Each DFA instruction may indicate varying numbers of transitions or branches from a current state. The cache pre-fetches a requested number of additional instructions consecutively following an accessed instruction. The DFA engine accesses an instruction from the cache corresponding to a state within a small number of transitions from the root state. When a low-branching instruction is executed to access a next instruction from the root state, or when a low-branching instruction is executed to access a next instruction from the cache, a fixed or configurable pre-fetch length is requested. Some instructions such as low-branching instructions may contain a pre-fetch hint.