The Board

In the least year or two I've discovered something that on reflection is blindingly obvious. So apologies in advance for stating the obvious. There are longer and shorter versions of this story of deconstruction and reconstruction. Here's the short one.

We all know that the casting stroke is ideally constructed from a perfectly sound basic stroke. If that's not in place, nothing else will compensate for the faults and the limitations they impose. Accordingly, teaching normally progresses from the basic stroke to the add ons like shooting and hauling.

But having added the add ons I wonder how many of us ever take them away again to reveal the unvarnished truth of what lies underneath.

Having decided to increase distance by increasing carry I found myself doing exactly that. I tried to extend the carry until the basic stroke couldn't handle the demand and then looked for the faults and the refinements in technique required to do the job. When and only when these have been sorted did/do I add back in the extras, one at a time. As ever, only the tape measure tells the truth.

The same approach has evolved into a more complicated practice regime to work on various stuff, the state of which is inevitably revealed by the carry tested against the tape.

The flip side is a suspicion that, for me at least, the add ons can obscure, partly compensate for and distract attention from, limitations stemming from the basic stroke.

Wonder whether others ever work like this and/or what they think about it.

Cheers
Mark

Pretty much, but you have to be careful too because the stroke is different with a haul. Ie the longest carry without a haul comes from pull-back but the longest carry with a haul comes from stopless.

Something you could try Mark, is instead of building a base stroke and adding addons such as the haul, body movement etc, is to try to base a stroke around each of these as the core element. Tracking can be a particularly good one.

Cheers Paul

Hi Mark,
I always work on both casting with extra smooth movements rod hand arm only and then increasing movements + adding haul and body movement. I find that concentrating too much on just one limitates me quite fast to just be good at this one. Agree with Paul about pull-back offering a large carry without line hand and 170 based stop offering longest carry with hauling.
Anyway still I too understand it as add ons as you named them...
Cheers
Bernd

The reason I suggest turning it around is because I don't feel that the haul is an add-on to the stroke but rather the centre which everything else revolves around. But it's also very good to start with the premise that you need to track straight, and of course starting from the ground up is useful too.

Cheers, Paul

Paul Arden wrote:Pretty much, but you have to be careful too because the stroke is different with a haul. Ie the longest carry without a haul comes from pull-back but the longest carry with a haul comes from stopless.

Something you could try Mark, is instead of building a base stroke and adding addons such as the haul, body movement etc, is to try to base a stroke around each of these as the core element. Tracking can be a particularly good one.

Appreciate the suggestions Paul. I will experiment with pull back. The stopless, 170 deg thing probably doesn't fit easily into my context which is developing a better and longer fishable cast. The longer version of my story would have included that info. The longer carry gives me a diagnostic test for stroke quality and the main performance indicators are full extension of the leader on delivery and hitting a defined target area which gets a little bigger as I get longer, say 30cms in diameter at 60' (18m) and 60cms at 80' (24m). Of course, I also want more grace, more distance and sexier loops.

I also hear what you say about coming at it the other way around and basing a stroke on each element. Intuitively, however, I think the model of the basic stroke and then the add ons works better for me because it fits with how I conceptualise things best.

Bernd Ziesche wrote: I always work on both casting with extra smooth movements rod hand arm only and then increasing movements + adding haul and body movement. I find that concentrating too much on just one limitates me quite fast to just be good at this one. Agree with Paul about pull-back offering a large carry without line hand and 170 based stop offering longest carry with hauling.
Anyway still I too understand it as add ons as you named them...

Hi Bernd. What you describe is quite similar to my new regime. I wonder if you like me you find the add ons can be a distraction from things like smoothness, late rotation, and correct tracking in both horizontal and vertical planes.

Way back I remember reading a book on how to ride/race motorcycles faster. One of the big points that stuck was that attention is finite. Think of it like a dollar. If 20 cents is going on this and 10 cents on that, pretty soon a lot less is available to spend on the big ticket items like late braking distance and line through the corner. In casting I find it helpful to simplify the stroke and increase the attention spend on the fundamentals and/or whatever I need to work on.

When I've grooved the rod hand work for the extra carry I add back the line hand shoots, backcast haul, and lastly forward cast haul (and in that order). If it starts to fall apart again I try go back, shorten up a bit and start the process again.

This overall approach helps me a lot, so much that I suspect the add ons can both distract attention and be used to compensate for more fundamental limitations instead of addressing those directly and repeatedly/routinely. Could just be me but I doubt it.

Cheers
Mark

Geenomad wrote:
Appreciate the suggestions Paul. I will experiment with pull back. The stopless, 170 deg thing probably doesn't fit easily into my context which is developing a better and longer fishable cast. The longer version of my story would have included that info. The longer carry gives me a diagnostic test for stroke quality and the main performance indicators are full extension of the leader on delivery and hitting a defined target area which gets a little bigger as I get longer, say 30cms in diameter at 60' (18m) and 60cms at 80' (24m). Of course, I also want more grace, more distance and sexier loops.

Cheers
Mark

Hi Mark,

Understood, but .... I suggest (politely...) that if you can, do spend some time working on the ''Stopless 170º" . I am certain that it will inform your (default) casting. Similarly, casting the two-handed rod can greatly inform one's single-hand overhead casting.

Craig

Hi Mark

The 170 isn't just a competition technique, it fits quite fine in fishing, even with shorter heads! It only needs minor adaptions, like no stepping when in a boat or on slippery rocks etc.

Cheers
Lasse

easterncaster wrote:
Hi Mark,

Understood, but .... I suggest (politely...) that if you can, do spend some time working on the ''Stopless 170º" . I am certain that it will inform your (default) casting. Similarly, casting the two-handed rod can greatly inform one's single-hand overhead casting.

Craig

Hi Craig
Lost my reply to this earlier somewhere in the IT ruck. No offence taken mate. I have played with "Stopless 170". Well maybe threw it into the mix of few times. Hardly deep experience eh? Thing is my list of priorities rarely shrinks enough that I've been moved to have a serious engagement with it. But can certainly relate to any cast informing its cousins, directly or indirectly.

Lasse Karlsson wrote:Hi Mark

The 170 isn't just a competition technique, it fits quite fine in fishing, even with shorter heads! It only needs minor adaptions, like no stepping when in a boat or on slippery rocks etc.

Hi Lasse
Ok, ok you've convinced me. I will give it a serious go next time out. No stepping in the boat? Fair enough. No rod smashing on the gunwales also sounds like a good plan.

Cheers
Mark

I've written this before but I'll mention it again! About ten years ago Jon Allen constructed a handle that could be fitted in parallel to an existing handle, in effect giving you one rod with two handles. This was for teaching so that the client didn't think you were a pervert when you asked to put your hand on his/hers and run behind the rose bushes.

Anyway something interesting came of this when we tried it, with all casters there was a defined stop when casting without double hauling, but as soon as the caster started hauling the defined stop disappeared. That's why I think you need to build a cast around the haul and not just the stroke.

I think I can claim my Snakehead delivery shots to be Stopless incidentally!

Cheers, Paul

Lasse Karlsson wrote: The 170 isn't just a competition technique, it fits quite fine in fishing, even with shorter heads!

Hi Mark,
I couldn't agree more with Lasse. Over the years I have heard a lot of fly casting instructors talking in a way about the 170 style, that it would lead to the line touching the grass/water in the back cast and that it would be shit for fishing.
Even in an (EFFA) exam I was told (by two of the examiners), that this style would not be allowed (to pass the task) cause it does make my casting look terrible compared to what it looked like before I was using the 170 style for the loong carry task. Ok, to be fair this happened in a time when the 170 style wasn't popular at all, especially not outside Sexyloopers. I too needed my time to get warmed up with how it looks.
Today all this has changed and the 170 style is not only popular for competition but it enters fishing more and more. I see one huge advantage. The longer stroke + tip travel allows for lower force application in order to get the same speed. It needs some time to get into the quite fast final rotation that many of the competition casters mainly do via their wrist movements. But once you have that quick wrist it feels to be an easy going nice tight loop shaping pretty effective distance fishing cast.
Feels to me this is a very valuable fishing cast for those being significant into fishing/casting in the first place. I wouldn't recommend this style to those fishing a few days a year...
Cheers
Bernd