VIDEO REVIEWS |
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FLY CASTING WITH LEFTY KREH FLY FISHING MADE EASY Learn how to make longer casts with less effort and in less time. 36 min. This video centers on Lefty Kreh's three principles: 1. The longer you move the rod through an arc the more the rod contributes to the cast. 2. You have to get the end of the fly line moving before you can make a cast. 3. The direction in which you stop the rod tip at the end of the cast is where the fly goes. These principles were illustrated by casts from Lefty Kreh and a girl student with the line cast from a position lying stretched out on the grass behind and then cast to a similar position in front with a 180 degree casting stroke. Mr. Kreh recommends the thumb on top grip and the open stance - right foot back for a right hander. He further observes that the biggest fault in casting is starting with the rod tip high. He begins the demonstration part of the $40.00 video with the admonition that you do not make the back cast by coming up and snapping but by coming back and pointing the rod in the direction you want the line to go and using a stabbing motion of the rod in that direction. The stab is a thrust backward and appears to eliminate tip snap on the back cast. He explains that the stab keeps the rod tip from driving the line down. He wants the line and the fly rod to be in a straight line to allow the caster to move the rod and arm through a longer arc. At this point in his demonstration with a student he pointed out that the size of the loop is determined by the amount you move the wrist. His student, a teen aged girl, used the double haul in following his instructions.
Mr. Kreh went on to state that the haul should be short - six inches - and to remark that people who make long hauls - 3 feet - put three feet of slack in the line. He advocates a late short haul - just as you stop on the back cast and as you "flick" on the forecast and remarks that you can throw 100 feet with a five inch haul. A long haul puts several feet of undesirable slack in the line he states and he advocates that the line hand never be more than 12 inches from the reel. His demonstration of the double haul involved a snap at 1:30 and a drift but no stab.
The three principles of the roll cast are: 1. Stop the rod way behind the caster and let the line drop. 2. The quicker you make the rod stop at the end of the cast the quicker the line takes off. 3. the distance you move the wrist determines the size of the loop. Lefty Kreh recommends two feet of overhang for shooting head casting and also recommends shooting running line into the last back cast. He says that the loop of line should be a rod's length away before dropping the rod into the fishing position. A tailing loop comes if you push your hand straight forward and the way to avoid the tailing loop is to t;urn the thumbnail slightly down at the end of the casting stroke. The video ends with some footage of the girl student catching a 14-16" trout. The various shots of Lefty Kreh casting seem to show him snapping the tip at about 1:45 on the back cast and then drifting with wrist rotation. He uses a leading elbow technique in the shots of a grass haul with 180 degrees of rod movement but he didn't seem to use a 180 degree stroke when he was demonstrating other things. This video does not appear to be intended for a beginning caster. The brother and sister who illustrated his techniques were obviously capable casters using haul techniques and tip action in the course of their demonstrations of the concepts he was teaching.
ESSENCE OF FLY CASTING MEL KRIEGER This video begins at the beginning of casting and kicks things off with a plug for fly fishing and the pleasures of the casting itself. Mel Krieger begins with the concept that the fore and back casts should be in the same plane and the length of the casting stroke varies with the length of the cast being produced. The wrist should not flop around and the caster must force the rod to bend by keeping a firm wrist and then slinging the line out. He shows the thumb on top grip and calls it the "extended finger grip" with the fingers separated. He mentions that the palm out grip is used for extreme distance and introduces the baseball throw comparison.
Practicing good form without the rod is suggested and he teaches the roll cast as the best cast to begin the development of a good casting stroke since the beginner is not troubled by the complexities of an aerialized line. He teaches the static roll cast at first, with the line coming to rest behind the caster and proceeds into throwing the line behind and commencing the forward casting stroke before the line can fall to earth. He emphasizes the need to force a bend in the rod to get a good roll cast loop. The progressive power application in the roll cast is common to all casts and the beginner should practice roll casting at least two hours, over both shoulders, before proceeding to the next step.
There are many fishing shots in this video and these shots all demonstrate the tip action Mel Krieger produces during both roll and overhead casts. After the roll cast he goes to a pick up and lay down with the line straightening out behind on the pick up. He explains the importance of creating a straight line path of the rod tip and the part of tip movement in creating tailing loops. He wants at least two hours of pick up and lay down before proceeding to false casting. Anyone watching this video would be able to notice that the more power he puts into the cast the more the tip snaps. Mel Krieger now tells the student that the essence of fly casting is a feeling of applying power and slinging the line out as in trying to throw and apple stuck on a willow stick. He reminds the student to start slow and sling it out - think "oily" he says.
At this point there is instruction on shooting line and line hand skills but no mention of "stopping the rod" or "whumping the rod" as yet. The next segment utilizes a Bahamas bone fishing expedition as a vehicle for teaching the double haul by Mel's widely recognized "downup" method, at first without the rod and then with the rod and, preferably, a shooting head outfit . Ten minutes of "downup" on the lawn with a shooting head will fix the double haul in the caster's body forever he says. He goes on to recommend and teach the Belgian cast for wind and heavy flies, with a constant pressure on the line and rod all through this circular back cast maneuver. His final instructional section teaches a number of slack line "presentation" casts for fishing a dry fly down stream. He never mentions his trademark "whumping the rod" in this video but all the shots show him whumping a lot of tip action into his strokes. The video ends with a philosophical discussion of the catch and release ethic in fly fishing. This video has the capability of getting a new caster off the ground and trotting in his or her casting career. Mel Krieger emphasizes learning the first step extremely well before going to the second step etc.. His other video, Essence of Fly Casting II, is on advanced fly casting and introduces the student to the "whump" and a lot more.
ESSENCE OF FLY CASTING II ADVANCED FLY CASTING MEL KRIEGER This high art video starts with dreamy shots of Mel Krieger, Jim Green and other prominent casters and goes on to enumerate the joys of fly fishing. The beginning of the instructional phase features casting shots in Belize and El Krieger's thesis that the secret of fly casting is "loading the rod". He demonstrates the long stroke of unschooled casters and contrasts short stroke casting with tip snap, or "whumping the rod" in his words. He emphasizes the primacy of this maneuver and notes that Joan Wolf calls it "power snap", Frank Gray calls it "flip the tip", Hugh Falkus says "snap the bloody tip off" and Jim Green and Steve Rajeff say "stop the rod". Mel Krieger goes on to demonstrate slight, moderate and extreme tip snap, using a firm wrist and recommends practicing "whump" with the rod and no fly line. The scene then shifts to Henry's Fork with Mike Lawson and the major problem of intermediate and advanced casters - the tailing loop. Mel reviews the mechanics of a fly cast and notes that good loops are formed by the straight line path of the rod tip and that short casts call for short strokes and long casts for long strokes. Wide loops are formed by a convex path of the rod tip due to too wide a casting arc or by a failure to "properly load or whump the fly rod". Assuming a reasonably straight fore and back cast, all tailing loops are caused by a concave path of the rod tip. The concave tip path can be from using a casting stroke that is too narrow for the amount of bend in the rod or from an erratic or jerky application of power as the rod is loaded and unloaded. He says you must whump the rod but you must also whump the rod smoothly. He then states that probably the most common cause of a tailing loop is unloading the rod too early in the casting stroke. You must unload the rod underneath the following line. He uses vivid imagery in telling the poets who cast to spell "whump" with two or three U s. "You must stay in the stroke longer. "
He goes on to demonstrate drift in a casting stroke employing both kinds of drift - linear hand movement and rotary wrist movement.
The video then goes into a fascinating interview and demonstration of digitized line illustrations of the pitching motion of Nolan Ryan and the casting motion of Steve Rajeff to demonstrate that they use similar principles of body mechanics to produce maximum linear speed for the baseball and the fly line. These diagrams are produced by computer processing of video footage of these two doing what they do. Mel Krieger says the greatest similarity between the two is the transfer of body position from the rear position to the forward position. The stick figures show Steve Rajeff casting with a leading elbow and shoulder turn, just as does Nolan Ryan.
Mel Krieger moves on to the grip and says the thumb on top is good and the index finger on top is also good. However he gives his major approval to what he calls the "key" grip - where the hand is rotated inward a little from the thumb on top grip and the base of the index finger is in position to brace against the top of the rod. This is the approximate position of the hand when inserting a key into a vertical key hole. For short casts the hand is kept close to the shoulder, then a little more out for longer casts and finally, for the ultimate distance,the Nolan Ryan-Steve Rajeff position - right foot back and the arm in the 90 - 90 position. This means the upper arm is 90 degrees to the axis of the body and the forearm is 90 degrees to the upper arm - a perfect position for throwing. He demonstrates this technique with the rod hand way behind the body and the shoulders rotated to the right followed by the body unwinding and the shoulders rotating to the left as the arm comes forward with the elbow leading. He cautions that the rod should always be loaded with elbow movement. He cautions against straightening the arm out to load the rod and says load with the elbow. These strokes can be effectively practiced without a rod - using the hand only. On short casts the thumb on top grip is good but on longer casts go to the V grip - the key grip he described earlier. A stiffer rod will give more line speed and distance and control whereas a softer rod will load for short casts and protect the tippet when playing a fish.
There is a discussion of rod action with a tip action rod working best with a narrow casting stroke and a butt action rod requiring a wide stroke. Most modern fly rods are built with a progressive action and will handle all ranges of casting. He describes the three ways to get the line behind - straight back cast, elliptical Belgian cast and the roll cast. He feels the straight back cast is technically the perfect cast when the line is perfectly straight behind.
At this point there is an interview with Steve Rajeff about the back cast. Steve Rajeff says you need a real definite stop on the back cast - need to crisply stop for a tight loop and then drift back so that as you start forward the rod starts to bend immediately. The next interview is with John Goddard, of England, who mentions that a side cast is less visible to the fish. John Goddard demonstrates ways to outwit the bushes with a curved Belgian type back cast to use less space behind or for heavy flies or to change direction.
Mel Krieger demonstrates three phases of roll casting, including the switch cast - the loop thrown around behind and cast forward before it can fall. There is an interview with Jim Green and demonstrations of single, reverse and double spey casting including the admonition that spey casting works just fine with a single handed rod. He mentions that all good casters drift after the whump as in whump - drift - cast. Short cast - short drift Long cast - long drift. Steve Rajeff demonstrates the double haul and the biomechanical pictures of his cast show the left hand is a mirror of the right (rod) hand and the left hand winds up extended at 180 degrees from the rod hand. Mel says the haul should begin and end at the same time as the casting stroke - ending at the moment the rod unloads. This very entertaining video is suitable for showing to a group of fly fishers as well as serving as a study guide for a caster with substantial experience. The computerized studies of Steve Rajeff's long casts are useful in that they allow study of the movements of the right arm and particularly right elbow travel, in advance of the rod hand. These stick figures simultaneously show all the activity of both hands and arms, something that is not easy with film footage where the body obscures the activities of one arm or the other. Mel Krieger and Steve Rajeff share the same theory of casting and top end casting skills are well exposed and taught in this video.
DYNAMICS OF FLY CASTING JOAN WULFF This video, produced by Fly Rod and Reel Magazine, starts with a bio of Mrs. Wulff commencing with her capture of the New Jersey State junior dry fly championship in 1939 at the age of 12. She continued her tournament career, winning three national casting titles in 1945 and defeating a male field in a 1951 national distance contest. She begins the working part of the hour and a half video with a description of the three phases of the fly caster:
2. Wants distance. 3. Performs each cast, short or long, with grace and precision. There follows a bio of her late husband, Lee Wulff and a demonstration of her popular teaching tool, the Flyo - a short fly rod casting yarn for indoor practice. She also shows how to cast a fly line without a rod. Her instruction phase of the video commences with the thumb on top grip and a discussion of the mechanics of the hand, wrist, forearm and upper arm. She stops the back cast with the wrist straight and the rod pointed up and mentions pushing with the thumb on the fore cast. She describes the stroke as accelerating to a stop. After a demonstration of the static roll cast - the line coming to rest behind the caster, she defines the parts of the casting stroke as the loading the rod phase followed by the "power snap" which is the accelerating to a stop part of the cast after the rod has been loaded. Mrs. Wulff emphasizes geometric positions in her instruction with angles between the rod and forearm being defined and the position of the thumb being described at various points of the cast. For instance the power snap on the forward cast should come when the thumb is perpendicular to a line from the eye to the target area on the water. After introducing false casting she demonstrates her method of having the student false cast in a horizontal plane - at waist level - with angles marked on the ground with sticks for the boundaries between the loading move and the power snap. She utilizes targets at the student's right and left to create a system of horizontal casting to instill in the student the parts of the casting stroke and the effective execution of these parts. She advises that for distances up to 35 - 40 feet all the student needs is the power snap but at greater distances a loading move is necessary. With the introduction of the loading move comes the addition of the drift to the stroke, in order to create a long enough casting stroke to allow a loading move before the power snap. She uses the term "follow through" and says it is called "drift" when it is on the back cast. It is important to rest your hand during every stroke and the place to do it is in the loading and follow through phases with a firm grip confined to the power snap part of the cast. Next there is a discussion of the four types of line in use now - level, double taper, weight forward and the triangle taper invented by her late husband, Lee Wulff. She advocates marking a weight forward line at the end of the belly part and also marking a line at the point where it will produce optimum load on the rod it is used with. There are discussions of various "presentation " casts, the oval (Belgian) cast and how to cast in the wind. She introduces the tactic of shooting line into the last back cast for a better load for the final forward cast. Mrs. Wulff emphasizes that the double haul should not be learned until basic rod mechanics have been well learned. She advises to limit the haul to the power snap part of the stroke, and not to haul in the loading move. She also emphasizes that the haul should be fast but the giving back of the line for the next haul should be slow, leaving no slack whatsoever in the line during the give back. She describes this as giving the line back "sweetly". In stressing the importance of practice Mrs. Wulff remarks that if you do not make practice fun you will not practice and goes on to describe ways to practice around home in a fun way by making it a game. The rest of the video is mostly devoted to descriptions of specialty casts such as curves, various ways to change direction, indoor practice, the correction of various casting faults and the importance of practice. At the end there are recognitions of the businesses and people who had a hand in the production of the video and a demonstration of two handed fly casting by Joan Wulff. This is an entertaining and instructive video by one of the icons of casting in our time. This lady obviously enjoys casting and the teaching of casting and the video reveals much of the the interesting and rewarding life her skill with the long rod has brought Joan Wulff. Her method of teaching is technical and detail oriented but if the student does what she teaches the student will cast and cast well. Although the video teaches much it by no means exhausts Mrs. Wulff's store of knowledge of the casting arts. It allows her student to build a sound foundation for learning ever more about this dance with the line.
SALT WATER FLY CASTING 10 STEPS TO DISTANCE AND POWER GEORGE V. ROBERTS Jr. George Roberts is the author of A Fly Fisher's Guide to Saltwater Naturals and their Imitation, McGraw Hill, 1994. He edits angling books, writes magazine articles and teaches casting in Massachusetts. This video comes with a 42 page pamphlet which serves as both a study guide and a refresher for use in the field while practicing what George preaches. George Roberts begins with the proposition that all good distance casters master three elements: 1. They all load and unload the rod properly. 2. They all maintain tight loops. 3. They all use a longer stroke for longer casts. He goes on to emphasize that the most important element in distance casting is loading and unloading the rod - the power comes from loading and unloading the rod and not from speed or the double haul. Smooth continuous acceleration of the rod tip is the thing and the potential power of the cast is not determined by how quickly you load the rod but by how deeply you load the rod. He emphasizes the importance of feeling the load on the rod. When you feel the resistance you pull deeper and deeper into the resistance but nevertheless loading the rod slowly. Then the rod is fully bent you unload it all at once by stopping the rod. The most common fault he observes is following through with the power rather than stopping the rod abruptly. Another thing to avoid is hitting or punching the cast from the outset - avoid the punch temptation and let the rod throw the line. FORMING TIGHT LOOPS: Tight loops come from a straight path of the rod tip and a curving tip path produces a wide loop. In order to create a straight tip path the rod must be stopped fairly high - 11:00 on the forward cast. The typical caster in trying to add power swings right through the point where the rod should be stopped ( his video demonstration shows this to be 11:00 on the forecast and 1:00 on the back cast) LENGTHENING THE CASTING STROKE: His demonstration shows him stopping the rod at ll:00 and 1:00 and drifting to 10:00 and 2:00 or so. The demonstration also shows him loading the rod with substantial linear hand movement - a foot to 18 inches. At this point in the discussion George Roberts notes that it is hard to distinguish the stop from the drift but that they are both there in the good long distance cast. The fresh water fisher, used to shorter range and the ll:00 to 1:00 stroke must learn to lengthen the total casting stroke by adding drift to the 11:00 to 1:00 stroke without sacrificing the stop at 11:00 and 1:00. The rod must still load and unload at 11:00 and 1:00 but continue on with a drift in order to provide stroke length for the loading phase before the next power stroke. George Roberts discourages extending the casting arm to the side or upward and wants the elbow low and close. . He likewise discourages lengthening the casting stroke with wrist movement because this opens the loop. He wants the wrist kept firm except for the 45 degrees of movement of the rod butt from parallel to the wrist to a 45 degree angle during the 11:00 to 1:00 power stroke and stop. The job of the line hand is to maintain tension on the line throughout the stroke and keeping the line hand close to the reel, in front or below it minimizes the chance of slack line. George Roberts advocates casting a little off the vertical plane generally in order to keep the hook at a distance although the accomplished caster should be able to cast in any plane between vertical and horizontal on either side and use the circular back cast Belgian cast as well. After these preliminary remarks George Roberts starts the student into his rigorous ten lesson program to actually create an incorruptible long cast stroke. Lesson One starts with his theme - If you have no back cast you have no cast and if you perfect the back cast you will know 70% of what you need to know. He goes on to describe a series of casting exercises on the lawn that teach back cast, Lesson 1, , forward cast, Lesson 2 and and shooting line, Lesson 3. . Lesson 4 teaches rod drift, but only after a most rigorous regimen of practice intended to fix the basic cast in concrete so that the drift will not undo anything taught in lessons 1-3. He mentions here the common phenomenon of a student who claims still to be stopping but in fact no longer stops but just drifts. Lesson 5 is devoted to distance casting, still on the lawn, putting into practice all that has been taught in the first four lessons. Lesson 6, Hauling, Part 1, Lesson 7, Hauling, Part 2 and Lesson 8, Hauling for distance and power, continue George Roberts' very businesslike program of specific things performed for specific periods of time. George does all this without happy talk or pictures of fish. He stays very close to teaching specific things which are to be learned and embedded in the caster's muscle memory before going on to the next step, which always depends on having perfected the previous step. Lessons 9 and 10 relate to casting in the wind and with heavy lines and weighted flies. Along with this video comes a 42 page booklet containing the essence of George Roberts' message without the visuals. It is handy both as a review document and as a field reference for the time when your casting isn't doing what you want and there is a fish out there that needs you.
This video is like no other that I have seen in its absence of get a great cast quick rhetoric. The author specifies substantial practice periods for his lessons in order to prepare the student for the next step and devotes zero time to entertaining the viewer. This is not a beginner video. He relentlessly reviews fundamentals and shows a willingness to push the student to perform - teaching tools relied on by all professional educators whether they teach fly casting, baseball or the multiplication table. He wants his viewers to learn.
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