Bamboo rods. Casting into the wind

[Unregistered]

Actually, I was curious with this quote,
“All those black rods were strapped to the top of people’s pickups in the parking lot, but I kept fishing straight into the teeth of the wind, because with bamboo you can load the rod without needing a lot of line speed.” http://midcurrent.com/gear/choosing-cane/

So it seems, besides the fun factor and other intangibles, the inherent qualities of cane makes it superior to graphite when casting into the wind?

cheers,
Dennis

You don't need to know anything about casting to realize that "fishing straight into the teeth of the wind… without needing a lot of line speed" is a blatant contradiction.
We all know that throwing a ball some distance by hand requires a given amount of effort; when wind arises throwing that ball the same distance into the wind asks for much more effort. The reason is that against the wind we must give more speed to the ball to get to the same distance.
With a fly line we confront the same problem: in calm weather a given line speed will give us a given distance, if we cast against the wind we must increase the line speed proportionally to the speed of the wind. Just common sense. Something like "getting more line speed… without the need of getting more line speed" is just bullshit. Common sense again.

From another (rather simplistic) standpoint line speed comes from the energy we put into the rod. If a bamboo rod bends more with the same energy input from the caster it means exactly that: just that the bamboo rod is softer and it bends more with the same energy. Same energy into the line with both rods gives the same results.

A fly rod is not a bow. Why a serious publication like midcurrent keeps giving that kind of casting advice is beyond me.

P.S.
By the way, Bernd:

Again the additional part in the overall line speed that we achieve during straightening of the rod is much smaller.

For the same casting stroke a softer rod stores more energy than a stiffer one. It doesn't change the fundamental aspect of this issue anyway.

Edit:
I have just taken a look to the full article and seen who the author is: to my knowledge he is a FFF CCI. Amazing.

[Bernd Ziesche]

in calm weather a given line speed will give us a given distance, if we cast against the wind we must increase the line speed proportionally to the speed of the wind.

Hi Aitor,
since air resistance increases in square with line speed, wouldn't this mean to achieve the same distance we would have to increase line speed more than proportional to the increase in speed of wind?

From another (rather simplistic) standpoint line speed comes from the energy we put into the rod. If a bamboo rod bends more with the same energy input from the caster it means exactly that: just that the bamboo rod is softer and it bends more with the same energy. Same energy into the line with both rods gives the same results.

Same energy input to both rods (stiffer and softer one) will (as you wrote) lead to more rod bend for the softer rod. That means we will have more of the spent energy being transformed during counterflex, right? And that part will not help to create line speed.
Yet I do not think that the same energy input to both tools would result in the same line speed. I think the effeciency would differ for both tools? And I would put my money on the stiffer one unless it won't be too stiff (almost rigid).

But I might be wrong.
Maybe you can add further explanation to help me understand why the same energy input would result in the same output on both tools.
Thanks
Bernd

[Unregistered]

in calm weather a given line speed will give us a given distance, if we cast against the wind we must increase the line speed proportionally to the speed of the wind.

Hi Aitor,
since air resistance increases in square with line speed, wouldn't this mean to achieve the same distance we would have to increase line speed more than proportional to the increase in speed of wind?

Of course you are right. I just wanted to look at it from the more simple standpoint possible.

[Paul Arden]

Yep that's simply wrong.

[Unregistered]

Same energy input to both rods (stiffer and softer one) will (as you wrote) lead to more rod bend for the softer rod. That means we will have more of the spent energy being transformed during counterflex, right? And that part will not help to create line speed.

I might be wrong, but although the counterflex of the bamboo rod will be a bigger motion it will also be a slower one. And it seems intuitive to me that high speed for a short distance spends as much energy as low speed for a long distance.

I am now worried of the technical guys reading this.

[VGB]

Same energy input to both rods (stiffer and softer one) will (as you wrote) lead to more rod bend for the softer rod. That means we will have more of the spent energy being transformed during counterflex, right? And that part will not help to create line speed.

I might be wrong, but although the counterflex of the bamboo rod will be a bigger motion it will also be a slower one. And it seems intuitive to me that high speed for a short distance spends as much energy as low speed for a long distance.

I am now worried of the technical guys reading this.

Build a mangonel and find out

[Bernd Ziesche]

I might be wrong, but although the counterflex of the bamboo rod will be a bigger motion it will also be a slower one. And it seems intuitive to me that high speed for a short distance spends as much energy as low speed for a long distance.-

That seems to make sense. Yet I would not put my money on it. Simply because we probably both agree that casting the stiffer rod will give us a tighter loop and higher line speed. If not why would the stiffer ones make most (if not to say all) of us cast further.
Sure this is only up to some degree. And this degree is different for everyone and depending on the situation.

Anyway we all agree that the avg. graphite rod outcasts the avg. bamboo rod in distance and shaping tight loops to cut the wind. And we also agree the big loading concept to not exist elsewhere but still in many heads.

An experiment measuring energy input and output for different rods indeed would be interesting, Vince.

Greets
Bernd

[andrewparkeruk]

“All those black rods were strapped to the top of people’s pickups in the parking lot, but I kept fishing straight into the teeth of the wind, because with bamboo you can load the rod without needing a lot of line speed.” http://midcurrent.com/gear/choosing-cane/

Edit:
I have just taken a look to the full article and seen who the author is: to my knowledge he is a FFF CCI. Amazing.

Not really Aitor; is it on the syllabus; especially is it on the syllabus in the US of A?

[Unregistered]

“All those black rods were strapped to the top of people’s pickups in the parking lot, but I kept fishing straight into the teeth of the wind, because with bamboo you can load the rod without needing a lot of line speed.” http://midcurrent.com/gear/choosing-cane/

Edit:
I have just taken a look to the full article and seen who the author is: to my knowledge he is a FFF CCI. Amazing.

Not really Aitor; is it on the syllabus; especially is it on the syllabus in the US of A?

Second paragraph here:
http://www.itinerantangler.com/about.htm

[Unregistered]

I might be wrong, but although the counterflex of the bamboo rod will be a bigger motion it will also be a slower one. And it seems intuitive to me that high speed for a short distance spends as much energy as low speed for a long distance.-

That seems to make sense. Yet I would not put my money on it. Simply because we probably both agree that casting the stiffer rod will give us a tighter loop and higher line speed. If not why would the stiffer ones make most (if not to say all) of us cast further.
Sure this is only up to some degree. And this degree is different for everyone and depending on the situation.

Well, I would put my money on it for now. Because there is another factor: the bamboo rod has more mass, and part of the energy stored in the rod goes to the line... but some part goes into accelerating the rod itself.

Why a stiffer rod makes most of us cast further? That wasn't the case with the 8 Rods - 8 casters experiment:
http://www.sexyloops.com/articles/8rod.shtml
We were surprised by the fact that the Streamstix T5 ended up with the shortest average casting distance, since the T5 was "developed" as a specialty rod for distance casting with the XXD line. This rod has, however, thrown very long casts. The rod got a lot of attention after the first round in the 5-Line Cup when Micael Blomberg achieved a cast of 34 meters-the longest cast of the round. The T5 also had the highest ERN value in the test.