1/2WT heavier lines

[John Waters]

Thanks Graeme, appreciate your reply. I had been told by an MCI and a CCI in Oz, that you cannot strip cast to the hoops in the accuracy test. By stripping they meant using your body to measure a fixed distance, say 5 feet, thus two such strips or half that and your have the specified 10 feet or 5 feet distance to move from one hoop to another. I had not heard the link with tournament casting, interesting. I presume that was based on tournament events in the US, but they have variable distances within a min/max specification. Same in Oz and in the ICSF Fly Casting Accuracy rules.

I am training, and currently mentoring an MCI candidate to use either sighting or air strips for the FFI accuracy task.

I think one part of my body has shrunk over the years, when I strip cast now I always come up short.

I note your comment Walter, was there a reason given for rejecting the variable hoop distance recommendation?

John

[Walter]

John,

No reason that I know of. I’m not on the test committee, it is a suggestion I made to a couple of people who are.

By the way, I don’t know of any restrictions on using measured strips for judging distance between targets. I’m not sure how they would enforce it if there was. Anyone who has practiced the accuracy enough is probably going to find their strips are a consistent length. I’ve never needed anything other than hovering the fly to hit the targets although as my eyes get older I have a harder time seeing the fly. A couple of tricks I use are to use a coloured leader and casting side arm to set up distance and then switching to overhead for side to side accuracy. I know other people add a bit of flash to their yarn fly to make it more visible.

[John Waters]

Thanks Walter, there is no mention in the task of how to measure so I assume all three methods are acceptable but I always like to remove the grey areas.

John

[Paul Arden]

I was on the committee for a short time. It was made clear that accuracy was not to be comp accuracy. I never understood no hauling since not hauling for me is a comp technique. I don’t really have an opinion on this stuff any more but what I would say to Graeme or anyone else is that if you are finding the MCI accuracy challenging then set up and cast to World rules as John suggests and learn to become really good at this. Not only is it more interesting than throwing at three fixed targets but when you do cast at these fixed three you should find it easier.

In fact I would actually argue that learning to throw at variable distance rings is one of the best things you can do for your casting. I’ve always said there are four disciplines; accuracy, distance, Speys and presentation casts. So it’s one of the big four.

Cheers, Paul

[Graeme H]

Yep, that’s exactly what I’ll be doing before my next attempt at MCI Paul. I got complacent in the lead up because it seemed too easy. I didn’t have a good enough technique behind me to fall back on.

All part of the journey.

Cheers, Graeme

[alp]

Hi Gents,

Sorry to interrupt your discussion, but who cares about EFFTA numbers? This is primarily the problem of the fishing industry and shopkeepers, maybe tournament casters and instructors. As a fly fisherman I'm just interested in length, mass and profile of the line I cast, depending on the fly mass and fishing conditions.

For example, I use a “4-weight” line (Guideline Experience 200 grains/13,1 meter head) for delicate dry fly and small nymph fishing and 250 grain OPST head plus 60-80 grain of sink tip (that’s 330 grains in cca 7,5 m of line!) for heavy streamers - on the same stick. Both works perfectly. Plus many other lines in different length, profile and head mass for different purposes. The number written on this rod is 6. But again, who cares about the number as long as it serves the purpose.

Same thing with my other rods. I got used to this approach thanks to my experience with TH fishing where most of the fishermans, I think, do the same. Checks mass, length and profile when shopping fly lines. Not EFFTA numbers based on 10 yards of the imaginary line.

Cheers
Alex

[Paul Arden]

Hi Alex,

Happy New Year!!! See you in August!

Yes I agree with you, however the vast majority of anglers would rather buy a line and rod with the confidence that the line matches the rod in the way intended. Instead of buying and possibly measuring large amounts of tackle, go the simplified route of buying a rod that has X number on it and matching it to X line. This used to work fairly well.

Unfortunately the lines are now more often than not heavier than standard and so now every line needs to be measured. Since it goes fly size, line weight, rod stiffness if Angler Joe buys a small stream fly line for fishing #20 CDCs on .10 tippet, that weighs one or two line classes heavier, then he’s going to be breaking off on his light tippets and his expensive rod is going to feel clumsy.

Cheers, Paul

[alp]

Happy New Year Paul, I'm looking forward to see you in August.

About the line numbers. I understand this problem very well. Just think that "#" numbers, whatever they are, are not a very good way to help Angler Joe. Maybe SH Joe needs to learn what every TH Joe already knows about the fly lines. Different lenght, mass and line profile for different flies and casting techniques on the same stick.

Cheers
Alex

[Paul Arden]

Hmmm but DH Joe is probably carrying the head outside the tip and letting rip. SH Joe is sometimes fishing with only his leader, then maybe a few metres of line. Sometimes he is carrying 50’. As a general rule of thumb shooting heads are one AFFTA heavier.

Cheers, Paul

[Walter]

This may be hard to believe, but some fly fishers only have one or two rods and one or two lines to go with them. Possibly a main rod and backup of the same weight or a dry fly and a streamer rod. Most likely these types don’t have or want a variety of line weights at their disposal. They just want a reasonable assurance that the line they purchased will work reasonably well with the rod they own. That’s pretty easy to do in the SH world. I don’t know if it has gotten any better in the DH world but I’ve seen shop owners do all sorts of silly things when selling DH equipment such as selecting a rod length based on the length of the customer’s arms. My personal favourite is ,”Your DH rod says 6 wt? Try this SH 6 wt line. That didn’t work? Sorry, we can’t take it back. Try this 7 wt line, I hear you need to upsize for DH.”