The Board

You emphasise on lifting as well the use of rotary drift to align the straightening line with rod tip, but if you watch casters such as Jerry some and even the rajeff brothers, they use just rotary drift with no apparent lift unless I'm missing it, what if you don't use lift? Just rotate the hand back.

Good question. I can’t remember Jerry’s drift. From memory I think it’s upwards but my memory is not something to be depended on unless it’s the weight of really big fish I’ve lost.

I went through the clip of Steve on SL from years ago. His first drift appears slightly upwards. His second doesn’t but that’s only a couple of casts. What I would add is that if Drift is small it’s less important and but for something like a wide arc change - eg Jason’s “Lay-back” - then it becomes more important.

Technically it can be timed to the line’s fall but I haven’t thought about this too deeply!

Cheers, Paul

Sorry meant Jerry Siem (sage), but I think you figured it out

Not sure if you're still following this topic but I have a confusion with drift when the stroke lengthen and becomes more parallel to the water, are we still lifting the hand up or focusing more on translating it back, like in your masterclass video you're probably keeping like 30' or so in the air I assume, how does your style of drift change as you increase the stroke?

Drifting I see more of an add-on than a core component of casting. While it can be used to widen the arc, you can just widen then arc when casting. While it can be used to smooth out the transition between casts, you can just be smooth without it. While it can give better timing, you can cast with perfect timing without it!

Consequently because it’s a supplement and not part of the core cast I don’t think there is any right or wrong way to do it. So my best advice is to play with it. I think the playing with it and figuring out what may or may not work for you is probably much more important than having a fixed method of drifting.

For a lot of casts it really isn’t important - however there are some change of direction casts where it is very important! I used to teach everyone to Drift at some point in the second lesson. Now I usually only teach it when there is a transition problem between casting strokes.

Ultimately Drift is really about positioning the rod to where you want to start the next cast and if this is different from where we finished our previous casting stroke then we have to reposition. That movement needs to be gentle and smooth - it is not a forced double movement. And if the rod tip can stay aligned with the fly leg of the loop then all the better!

So I would recommend having a bit of fun with it, know it’s there, and revisit every six months.



Cheers, Paul

Yea I go back and forth, always experimenting. As far as aligning the tip with the unrolling line by "lifting" and then opening the wrist, how does "not" aligning the tip translate to the loop shape? Say I don't lift and just open the wrist, come forward with line above the tip what flaw would that cause? Would I be pulling the line downward potentially crossing the two legs and tailing?

It will open the loop slightly and potentially send a half wave down the rod leg. I don’t think it will cause any major problems but it’s not optimal. With a wide arc change (Lay-back) you’ll be in danger of settling up a dangling end.

Cheers, Paul