Gaze Behaviours in Fly Casting Accuracy

[Paul Arden]

I think knowing the respective cues and where to look is a big part of it Vince. Mostly I teach those sort of long term experienced folks who have plateaued. It does certainly take time to ingrain sighting etc. but once you know where to look it’s much easier to learn. I remember figuring this out for myself in distance 20 odd years ago and it still took me six weeks to ingrain, training 2hrs daily.

I don’t know if it’s easier to teach less experienced casters to sight, that’s really just a trickle of my long term students. I think there are other things that I would concentrate on first anyway. The 3Ps for example.

Cheers, Paul

[VGB]

I work on the 6P’s I have a lot of empathy for those that need to change ingrained behaviour, it took me a long time to get past and I still practice regularly to stop recidivism.

Regards

Vince

[Paul Arden]

It’s what we are doing when training, constantly breaking down technique and rebuilding it. It’s a continual cycle for me. At least that’s how I see it. I know others think that there is a top of a mountain but I don’t think so!

Cheers, Paul

[Stoatstail50]

I think knowing the respective cues and where to look is a big part of it Vince.

I agree Paul but I think the point made in post 4 is, very sadly, still largely true.

Unfortunately at this time few professionals in the field address the visual system and the contribution of gaze control and attention to performance when giving instruction on how to cast more accurately.

Bearing in mind this was from 2008 and it's based on known learning principles going back for decades before that, you would imagine we might have picked up on the implications for casting instruction before now...and, IMO, we still haven't.

[John Waters]

It’s what we are doing when training, constantly breaking down technique and rebuilding it. It’s a continual cycle for me. At least that’s how I see it. I know others think that there is a top of a mountain but I don’t think so!

Cheers, Paul

I agree Paul, same for me.

John

[Paul Arden]

It would be interesting to write out all the visual cues we use. You can always tell a well-trained distance caster because he looks to his back target before making his or her casting stroke.

Jet lagged to hell right now.

Cheers, Paul

[Stoatstail50]

There is an interesting thing on targeting that relates to fly casting. That is, if the last thing you look at is a tree, branch or obstacle in order to avoid putting your fly in it, then it actually makes it more likely that you’ll hit it because your brain interprets the fixation on the branch or bush as a target. This is a hypothesis I’ve tested many times

[Paul Arden]

It’s the same with bike riding.

[Stoatstail50]

[Bernd Ziesche]

Hi Vince,
Thanks for the link. Long read though. Interesting how all the old definitions of Lefty Kreh, Ed Jarowsky and others about what for example happens in a fly cast still find their way into such studies. Not very helpful to me reading thru such a paper. Makes me starting to jump over chapters. Attention and focus indeed is an interesting part though.

Here is one of the advices for us instructors given by the author:

Fly casters should be encouraged to focus their attention on the target location instead of focusing on their arm movements, or trying to follow track the line on
the backcast which is often instructed of beginner casters.

I obviously disagree with this.
In my opinion there is no general conclusion one should make from one small studie in a very narrowed task to general fly casting. It all depends on what one is learning at the moment and what's needed in whatever situation. Also the study wasn't made with beginners anyway.

The general conclusions about comparing 8m and 13m are highly dependent on a lot of factors. Ime it's not as simple as the author wants to make the reader believe. Lengthen the leader as often required in dry fly situations and 8m leaves almost no fly line outside the tip. He then might be surprised to see a drop on short distance compared to medium distance. In the EFFA exam 6m was always the tough one, not the medium distance.

Then I dont think you can compare a preferred (or probably better well trained) focus to a given (and probably not trained) one. At least having trained one will highly influence results.

All in all it's a good read and an interesting topic. I would have like to read what the 7 participants thought and concluded about the tests and the results. I was missing that!
Regards
Bernd