Reel orientation
Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2020 12:53 pm
Hey folks...
The other night while enjoying a practice session as the sun set I made a new (to me) observation. I was casting with my left hand. I am slowly nursing it back into action from a pretty good case of tendonitis that flared up more than 6 months ago. I won’t belabor how much I missed being able to cast with either hand, but once you get there you get spoiled by the convenience.
Anyway, I was working on getting my legs vertical on the backcast and I was paying more attention to that than what my hand was doing when I realized a distinct difference in feel and an improvement in accuracy. When I switched my attention to what I was actually doing I realized that I had allowed the reel to swing almost 90 degrees out from the target line. That happened when I was concentrating on parallel and vertical legs on the backcast, but I was maintaining it on the presentation cast also.
Feedback from the rod, and accuracy were both significantly better, so I wondered if it was a left hand only thing. To check it out I immediately switched back to casting with my right hand, which is significantly more adept, and I found that the cast felt much better in that hand also.
It felt like the central mass of the reel moved into the reel seat when the reel was 90 degrees to the target line. Where as, when the reel was in line with the target, it was displaced from the rod… which is how it always has felt although I never noticed.
I think I now actually prefer to cast with the reel rotated out. Finishing the stroke with wrist rotation feels much more natural and as if the rod is pivoting around a central point in my hand.
Has anyone else played with this?
The other night while enjoying a practice session as the sun set I made a new (to me) observation. I was casting with my left hand. I am slowly nursing it back into action from a pretty good case of tendonitis that flared up more than 6 months ago. I won’t belabor how much I missed being able to cast with either hand, but once you get there you get spoiled by the convenience.
Anyway, I was working on getting my legs vertical on the backcast and I was paying more attention to that than what my hand was doing when I realized a distinct difference in feel and an improvement in accuracy. When I switched my attention to what I was actually doing I realized that I had allowed the reel to swing almost 90 degrees out from the target line. That happened when I was concentrating on parallel and vertical legs on the backcast, but I was maintaining it on the presentation cast also.
Feedback from the rod, and accuracy were both significantly better, so I wondered if it was a left hand only thing. To check it out I immediately switched back to casting with my right hand, which is significantly more adept, and I found that the cast felt much better in that hand also.
It felt like the central mass of the reel moved into the reel seat when the reel was 90 degrees to the target line. Where as, when the reel was in line with the target, it was displaced from the rod… which is how it always has felt although I never noticed.
I think I now actually prefer to cast with the reel rotated out. Finishing the stroke with wrist rotation feels much more natural and as if the rod is pivoting around a central point in my hand.
Has anyone else played with this?