LAST UPDATE 04/20/03 09:19 Copyright 1997 - 2000 BP Ptrs.
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3.2 EVEN MORE FLY CASTING TIPS |
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57. This is a response to your
editor's suggestion, on the contests page, that the five weight distance
casters in the International Sportsmen's Exposition contests around the West
would have lost about 8 feet of distance had they used a double taper line.
Lance Egan, who was the runner up in the 2003 finals in Salt Lake City, had
this to say: Lance Egan: "One thing I disagree with you - you mentioned you feel a DT would take away some distance in this game. I feel the opposite. A DT although shorter, is heavier and thus loads the rod easier. It also turns over very well on long casts. Another thing is a DT is usually shorter, which means you will be shooting backing. The backing carries with ease and offers less resistance when shooting through the guides. I feel most competitors would actually gain some distance with a DT. Just my two cents. Lance Egan." In my book this qualifies as a tip for the experienced caster. Thanks Lance.
56. For an interesting dissertation on the technique of indicator fishing, including methods of casting and the construction of the indicator - flies combination see FISHING STUFF. 55. DISTANCE CASTING ADVICE FROM MARVIN HEDGE. As descibed in the History page of this website, History of Casting and Casters, Marvin Hedge introduced the double haul to the tournament casting world and thus to the world at the 1934 Nationals in St. Louis. In 1935 he published a pamphlet describing his distance cast. This was a shooting head event with a cane rod which could be as long as 11 1/2 feet. Marvin Hedge was a large man for his era and was able to handle a rod like that though we have not yet been able to establish the dimensins of the rods he used. He used a thumb on top grip and a closed stance with his right foot about 18 inches in
front of his left. He was right handed. 1. Cast a straight line. 2. Start the lift slowly with a flip at the end. 3. Stop the rod at 12:00, not breaking the wrist from its' original position. 4. Wait for the pull of the line before beginning the forward cast. 5. Stop the rod at 10:00 and allow the line to extend above the water. The preliminary casts were with twenty or thirty feet of line and he cautions that if you don't feel the pull of the line " ...lift the next cast faster and snappier and make the flip more pronounced." To get longer he advises using both hands (the haul) He says to take your stance and reach out with the rod 1/2 an arm's length with the shoulders square and reach out with the left hand to a point even with the right hand. Now pull slowly with the left hand to start the line coming and straighten the body to an erect position. He says start the lift slowly, immediately after the left hand has started pulling and end the lift with the right hand opposite your right ear, the rod stopping as before in a perpendicular position, "putting plenty of tension on the rod".
The left hand follows the right, with a hard jerk, to a position in front of and below the chin. After all tension is off the rod on the back cast and the line is straightening out in back and just before the line pull starts, drift the tip of the rod back slowly to 1:30 and let the line bend it further back to 2:30, always holding the grip in the starting position. He cautions not to relax the grip during this part of the cast and particularly do not let the left hand give line out as this is only going to be a lay or dry cast.
For the final cast he crouched lower, rising up into the back cast, while raising his left hand in unison with the right and "as the rod reaches its' limit of tension I jerk the line with the left hand, starting slowly, as before " (this is still in the back cast).
He goes on to tell the reader that this time, as the line straightens out at the 2:00 position and while waiting for the line pull, he pivots his body and shoulder and turns his head as if to watch the back cast. This allows him to reach farther back with his left hand. At the start of the back pull of the line his left hand comes up in place, ready to shoot line on forward and to place tension on the rod before the right hand thrust starts. He next unwinds his body pivot and repeats the left hand pull as he leans forward and shoves. He next brings the rod over as before and with the aid of his thumb rest grip he finishes the forward stroke with a powerful flip in front, releasing line with the left hand. . ( Marvin Hedge developed a thumb rest to use on his salt water fish. ) Marvin Hedge used tip snap action of the rod extensively in his career as a tackle rep and developer of fly lines. In several parts of his advertising brochures he advised the caster to use more tip snap if the line was not straight in back and his cure for insufficient line pull on the rod in the back cast was to repeat the back cast with a more pronounced flip of the tip.
Marvin Hedge's description is unique in the literature, at least in the English language, in that he gives detailed, somewhat precise descriptions of his preliminary and final distance casts while describing the use of tip action in distance casting.
54. ANOTHER RAJEFF BROTHERS TIP. Steve and his brother Tim post casting tips on their web page. They have recently posted an insight into how to minimize or even eliminate waves in the line. Check it out. You will be glad you did. Getting the waves out of a strong cast is putting the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae in this game. 53. THE TWO KINDS OF DRIFT The puzzle of every teacher is how to introduce drift without ruining the short stroke that has been taught. The best answer to this is to teach drift way after the student is thoroughly grounded in casting and hauling etc..The interesting thing about drift is that first of all there are two ways to drift and second, drift adds so much power and control when distance is on the menu. The first type of drift ordinarily discovered by the caster is rotary drift - produced by angular motion of the rod from wrist action. This drift can be found in any length of stroke and tends to open up the loop in both directions. This wrist generated angular drift is frequently followed by a tailing loop as well. The other kind of drift is what I call the parallel drift. This will be seen in many illustrations of casting strokes and is the gem of the drift game. I don't see it as much as the rotary drift and the reason is that it is hard to do from a mechanical standpoint. Every caster starts out wanting to cast with the wrist and one reason for that is that it is less effort to rotate the rod from the wrist than to put out the foot pounds needed to move the whole rod back, by the use of hand movement, thus adding a few inches or a foot or more to the space available for loading the rod on the forecast. The hand has to be out by the shoulder and moving from a point a foot or so in front of the head to a point as much as six inches or a foot behind the head, depending on how limber the caster is. This requires work and requires rotating the wrist forward, rather than back in order to keep the rod moving parallel to itself as the forearm is moving and rotating backward. There are various degrees of this motion available depending on how far out from the body the cast is being made. For accuracy casts with the rod side foot forward the hand will be beside the head and moving back and forth in a plane that misses the ear, just barely. For great power, with an open stance, the rod might be outside of the shoulder in the baseball throwing motion used for great distance. In either case conscious effort to make the rod run back parallel to itself is needed . The wrist will resist cocking so far forward while the hand is moving backward. There will be instances where after the limit of parallel drift has been reached some rotary drift will be added to the back cast. This can get the rod back almost horizontal and in a position to come forward with the leading elbow motion that helps produce line speed. While the elbow is leading the hand forward the rod is moving forward parallel to itself before finally going into rotary motion again, leading to the final tip snap. So, the parallel backward drift is mirrored on the leading elbow forward stroke. This parallel drift will loosen up the arm and shoulder joints in time and should be approached gradually. It is amazing how the body wants to return to bending the wrist back rather than to perform the arduous parallel drift maneuver. But in time, the very pleasing results from this move will produce a conditioned response. If I do this uncomfortable parallel drift I will have a great back cast and forward cast. The final dividend from the parallel drift is that it allows the caster to feel the tug of the line better, because the rod is closer to perpendicular to the line. The closer the rod is to ninety degrees from the line the easier it is to feel the line straighten out. Sometimes you can drift a little more with the wrist as you feel the line straighten if there is enough speed on the back cast. 52. THE UNHAUL. When we throw to a long target, especially on a windy day, it helps to haul some extra speed into the cast. This is where the unhaul comes into play. It can be a good idea to slow down the turnover of the fly at the end of the forecast by feeding some line back into the rod by moving the line hand out toward the stripping guide. This characteristically occurs when a six or eight inch haul has been used to add some authority to a cast for purposes of wind or control but slamming the fly onto the water will lead to a penalty or scare the fish. 51. THE DOWNUP REVISITED. Nearly everyone I know uses Mel Krieger's "downup" procedure for teaching the haul. It works. It works in a hurry. The effect is miraculous. I know of no better way to get people into the haul. The trouble is that after casters are firmly ensconced in the downup maneuver it is time to shift them into the down-softly up and down softly - up softly maneuvers so that the ultimate glory of the smooth, many times soft haul can be realized. Many hauls are itty bitty things used just to turn the leader over or rescue a fading cast. The monstrous powerful hauls for making the rod do its' maximum duty on a long or windy cast have soft beginnings and soft endings in the false casting phases so as to avoid the slaunchwise kick of the fly from an abrupt end of a haul. When you see the loop going out sideways (and not very far either) it is usually because the back cast was not straightened out or the haul was jerky. A great strong haul into the back cast with an abrupt end will let the fly bang around at the end and waggle off to the side whereas if the haul was softly ended the fly will stay straight and the loop will be in a single plane. The same thing is true on false casts to the front - There it is easy to see the fly kick one way or another - up, down or sideways - if the haul ends abruptly. 50. An interesting discussion of the place of practice and casting skills is Presenting and Retrieving the Fly a part of the advertising for a resort in Belize. 49. GOLDEN GATE ANGLING AND CASTING CLUB PRESENTS STEVE RAJEFF DISCUSSING WAYS TO EVALUATE FLY CASTING TECHNIQUES. This is posted on the GGACC website and is an extensive collection of tips from the top.
It is fashionable to say that long casting is not needed to catch fish but we note that people interested in the art of the long rod judge themselves and others by the length of their cast. The current practice of including distance casting events in sports shows allows us to try our luck in the contest and to observe the winners as well. Distance casting has one undeniable virtue. Maximizing distance requires more rigorous adherence to basic principles than a shorter cast. Practicing distance refines the casting stroke. A recent Al Kyte and Gary Moran article in The American Angler continued their analysis of the movements of capable casters. They mentioned that all long casters use long rod strokes to achieve line speed and they showed sketches, derived from photographs, of the hand and arm movements of several different casters. Sketches of one of the casters, noted for using a lot of body movement, a wide casting arc and lots of hand travel, showed a concave path of the hand through the four or five foot path of hand movement - the hand traveled in a shallow curve - dropping down in the middle and rising at the end of the casting stroke. That is the swoop. Lowering the hand in the middle of the stroke where the rod is being rotated to vertical, (and the rod tip is thus rising) keeps the tip traveling in a straighter line because the rod is being lowered. Raising the hand toward the end, when the rod is being rotated back toward the horizontal, continues the straighter tip path. Kyte and Moran discovered that all the casters they studied, irrespective of their short stroke or long stroke style, increased the angular travel of the rod considerably when they went for distance, increasing from an average 78 degrees for thirty five foot casts to an average 133 degrees for ninety foot casts. Keeping a tight loop with the longer stroke is where the swoop comes in. It is not hard to experiment with the swoop by raising the hand a little at the end of the back cast stroke and then lowering it into the forecast hand thrust with a lift again late in the thrust. The immediate effect of this is to tighten the loop up a lot. Repetition of this in false casting will develop a feel for the swoop and then, on the final forward stroke, the swoop will keep the loop tight. It is helpful to adjust the back cast so that it is 180 degrees from the final fore cast (if the bushes and water etc. will allow this) but even if the surroundings limit the level of the back cast the swoop will tighten up the loop and yield greater distance. It will also tend to lower the cast. It will definitely limit the ballooning of the loop that accompanies a lot of power with a wide rod arc. It may also yield a wind knot or hook in the hat if you are using a heavy fly so experiment a bit. It works well with shooting heads and weight forward lines. Like any other new maneuver, trying the swoop will disturb the things you already know. Your prized straight back cast, maintenance of line tension, tip snap, long haul, leading elbow etc. may all suffer as you try out the swoop but they will come back with practice. The swoop doesn't help much if one or more of the other elements of a killer cast gets degraded while you are swooping it but it will all come together again in time. The swoop tends to lower the forecast but can be corrected upward with a little experimentation. Lowering the back cast will facilitate a higher forecast. The proof of the pudding is in the size of the loop. If the loop gets narrower it means the rod tip traveled a straighter path. Lowering the hand during the stroke will straighten the tip path and narrow the loop on any cast. It is a skill and adjustment to be learned and used as it becomes natural. As you get onto it you will find yourself narrowing the loop too much and producing wind knots and tangles from a six inch loop but that can be adjusted.
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