MPR practise drills

[alanj]

Hi,
I have just got my MPR and after the initial excitement and destruction ( picture and guitar yanked off the wall on back cast and 2 ornaments on forward - no great loss in my opinion ) what should i be practising?

I'm a beginner having only started fly fishing this year. After a few months of trying to enhance the fish life by aerating the water I recently had a lesson ( first of many I hope ) with the excellent Nick M. But with winter, wind and lack of local practise space I want to keep improving - hence the MPR.

But what sort of things should I be practising that will help when back on the water? Should I just try and increase muscle memory with repeats or maybe look at new techniques? Or both?

Thanks
Alan

[Paul Arden]

Haha demolition casting! Do you have a cat in the house?

That’s a great question Alan and I look forward to the replies. I had one but I took it trout fishing in Tasmania. We also had some 5WT distance casting competitions with one

Cheers and welcome to the Board!
Paul

[James9118]

MPRs are great fun - the BFCC has a few of them for sale at meetings if members want one.
There's so much you can practice with them (pretty much all the casts), but I'd start with something like:

Static roll casts; learn to throw big loops and tight loops, off both shoulders.
Static roll casts; uber tight loops using a pull-back stop off both shoulders.
Static roll casts; upside down loops - this isn't truly that useful but it's fun and demonstrates a control of the rod tip.

Overhead casting: big loops/tight loops off both shoulders
Overhead casting: big loop on the backcast followed by a tight loop on the forward, then vice-versa i.e. tight b/c and fat f/c
Overhead casting: trajectory control - pick targets (ornaments :-)) at different heights and try and hit them. Repeat with the backcast.
Overhead casting: Start false casting with the rod paralllel to the ground on the rod hand side, and whilst continually false casting lift the rod gradually towards the vertical and then over to the off-the-shoulder side. Maintain good loops whilst doing this.

That's a starter from me before you get into more advanced stuff.

Regards, James

[alanj]

Hi,
Sadly no cat at the moment, best get one to spread the blame.

So I think I am restricted to Roll casts at the moment - not enough space indoors for safety. When the wind stops I'll try the overheads in the garden.

Static roll casts; learn to throw big loops and tight loops, off both shoulders. - Yep practising these. Not too bad so far.
Static roll casts; uber tight loops using a pull-back stop off both shoulders. - Um what's a pull back stop?
Static roll casts; upside down loops - this isn't truly that useful but it's fun and demonstrates a control of the rod tip. - sounds fun but no idea how to achieve this?

I got my MPR from Amazon. Shipped from the US in a couple of days and no duty/fees to pay.
I'll also have a look at the BFCC.

Thanks for the tips.

[James9118]

Hi,

'Pull back' is like trying to reverse the direction of the rod tip an inch or so instead of just stopping it. It's important that this feeling of trying to reverse the direction is instead of the stop and not after it. Probably best to get Nick to demonstrate.

You get an upside-down loop by tracking the rod tip along a concave path, like the shape of the inner surface of a bowl. You'll need to use your elbow and shoulder joints to achieve this.

Cheers, James

[Paul Arden]

Pull back is like flicking a towel away from the target.
https://www.sexyloops.com/flycast/pull-back/

Inverted roll cast loop (some bald guy!)
https://www.sexyloops.com/movies/usdloop.m4v

Actually using an MPR take note

Nice drills there from James! Casting loops underneath chairs might be useful (and save the porcelain).

Cheers, Paul

[alanj]

Thanks for the tips.

Loving the pull back, it just feels natural and is working well.

Not having as much joy with the inverted loop, but I think that is furniture related. Time to move things around.

[alanj]

A question about the pull back cast.
I have noticed that when I do this the loop seems to form between 1/2 and 3/4 up the rod and then rolls out always below the rod tip.
Is this normal or even a problem? The cast seems to be fine - mostly. ( Only rarely does it tangle on the rod )
Could it be due to the very low power using the MPR indoors from the sofa?

[James9118]

A question about the pull back cast.
I have noticed that when I do this the loop seems to form between 1/2 and 3/4 up the rod and then rolls out always below the rod tip.
Is this normal or even a problem? The cast seems to be fine - mostly. ( Only rarely does it tangle on the rod )
Could it be due to the very low power using the MPR indoors from the sofa?

Perfectly normal - exactly what I get when doing low power roll casts with pull back.

Cheers, James

[alanj]

Phew thanks for that. I was worrying that I might have been learning poor technique.