Hi Mark, When you make the constraints tight enough then there does become an optimal method. (That does of course go to the heart of constraints led coaching; ie to allow the athlete/flycaster to get ever closer his or her optimal performance). You say that vertical Is best for accuracy hoops and I...

Yep. I think it’s quite difficult to train pocket water fishing on a field. I think what I would do is to create a package of skills… and then create the challenges later. I don’t know what yours is but mine would be tight loops in all rod and loop planes. Varying loop sizes. Overpowered and underpo...

Nice photos, Vince! I think we should actually create such a competition. I’ve made overpowered curve casts around posts to targets in competition (West Yellowstone) as well as had to cast through standing hoops (Denver). I enjoy the Danish Games and find those fun. I’d certainly rather do that than...

I think much of this is true, Mark. I’d love to see an assault course crazy golf style flycasting game. That would be fun. This of course means that there are more constraints and not less. That reminds me of the games we played at the conclaves and other meets. The first caster says what he going t...

There are many different types of accuracy competitions. Australia has their own. I think you’ve only seen the ICSF ones with fly fishing tackle, Mark. The other ICSF games are different again. 10WT sinking line I believe! I’ve certainly had a go at the Aussie ones when Down Under. That’s heavy gear...

I’ll play with that but my top level objective will be that static fly. In fast moving water an underpowered curve that leaves the fly in slack water and the line in faster water is a great fish catching cast, and I practice that a lot. Ok in that case it’s useful. I still don’t know if it’s better...

how do you define performance? I would think be how closely the fly and line lands according to our objectives. At first we might just want to curve or bend the line. Then we might want to curve around an obstruction. Then around the obstruction and into a target. The target can become increasingly...

The dog seems impressed! How do you structure your presentation casting lessons, Vince? Do you teach using key casts or is it all line manipulation without cast names? Do you then go deeper (eg curve cast with slack at the apex vs slack at the fly)? Personally I’ve always thought that sort of thing,...

The nice thing about these casts is you can practise in your garden (if you have a garden), even if it’s small. In fact you can probably practise indoors.

2 out of the 3 I taught last week were like that, both wanted pocket water techniques. Teaching them to transition from fishing in fast streams water to efficiently presenting the next cast was covered in the latter half of the lesson. They’ll need to practice that in the wild though, it’s not easy...