measurements during competition match

[Richard]

Hi all,

In The Netherlands we are preparing for a first 'official' (i.e. backed up up by the national (fly) fishing sports federation) Dutch championship in 2024. I was wondering whether people could share experiences they have with measuring distance casts. In particular, I was wondering about
(1) whether any digital means are used to measure distance;
(2) how wind speed / wind direction are measured.
We will be casting on land only. Any other tips on what to prepare for or reckon with are most welcome as well.

Best,

Richard

[Lasse Karlsson]

Hi Richard

Are you going to use existing rules, or make new ones?


1. Digital measuring takes time, and can be difficult depending on weather. We tried it once at the Danish Championships, not doing that again Measuring tape is faster, easier, and accurate enough. I would advice measuring similar to how its done in athletics. And depending on rules, just mark the longest casts during casters round and measure afterwards.

2. Winddirection usually determined casting direction on the day. Straight from behind accomodates both left and right dominant casters.
Windspeed is usually not measured in flycasting. Castingsport does, but I have little experience here, but theres several casters on SL so hopefully they will answer.

Cheers
Lasse

[John Waters]

Hi Richard,

On grass, laser is used in WCs but here in Australia we use a tape. We measure the longest 3 casts and average them for the result and using a tape is simple, accurate and effective.
In WCs a wind gauge is set up at the judges station but that is to measure wind speed for record casts. Casting direction is decided by Chief Judge before courts are set.

John

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Handheld electronic devices can be obtained amazingly cheap these days. Laser "tape measures" and miniature anemometers are all over the internet.

I have one of each for when I really want to nerd out when playing around with my flyrod.

[Paul Arden]

Hi Richard,

Usually we have two guys measuring each lane. They need to both be awake and nimble. If two sticks are used, leave one where the fluff landed and only put the other in when a cast is longer (and retrieve the original one). When the time is out they can measure square to the tape. It’s easier to be square from the fluff than from the tape.

Good luck!!

Cheers, Paul

[Richard]

Hi Lasse, John, Mangrove and Paul,

Thank you very much for sharing your insights.

Being gadget minded, I was sure there must have been a more elegant digital solution. But I guess, this is a glider aeroplane case. A 100k US dollar item, using a shoe lace on the outside of the plane to determine wind direction.

So:
- we will be using analogue means and @Paul, to do it with two people and sticks (markers) and only afterwards do the final measuring is a great suggestion;
- @Lasse, we will be using the ICSF ruleset: https://www.icsf-castingsport.com/uploa ... nrules.pdf. However, as we want the sport to grow in The Netherlands, we feel that curious fly fishers can also participate using a different line than the MED line. These casts will be ranked (as practice shows, that they never meet top rankings), but in listings these casts will be marked us unofficial result (so everyone is aware of it). So far this has lead to most people purchasing a MED anyway. @Lasse, were you hoping we would design a different set of rules?

Food for thought for the sport:
When we talked to our national fishing association about whether they were willing to back up the competition as official national competition, they were very keen on having wind measurements (basically a prerequisite). This probably originates from other types of fishing casting competitions. And obviously is daily bread in various other sports such as athletics and ski jumping.
Combine that with the fact that various people refer to casting competitions as lotteries, perhaps we should take this more seriously and start measuring both velocity and direction(1) during competitions. Just by gathering that data, we would have more intelligence to make informed decisions on whether or not to control for both in future competitions.

(1) I get the point that the court is aligned to the wind in the first place, but at least in NL (crowded) courts are often influenced by winds suddenly being diverted by contextual elements, buildings, treelines, windmills , etc.

[Lasse Karlsson]

- @Lasse, we will be using the ICSF ruleset: https://www.icsf-castingsport.com/uploa ... nrules.pdf. However, as we want the sport to grow in The Netherlands, we feel that curious fly fishers can also participate using a different line than the MED line. These casts will be ranked (as practice shows, that they never meet top rankings), but in listings these casts will be marked us unofficial result (so everyone is aware of it). So far this has lead to most people purchasing a MED anyway. @Lasse, were you hoping we would design a different set of rules?

Food for thought for the sport:
When we talked to our national fishing association about whether they were willing to back up the competition as official national competition, they were very keen on having wind measurements (basically a prerequisite). This probably originates from other types of fishing casting competitions. And obviously is daily bread in various other sports such as athletics and ski jumping.
Combine that with the fact that various people refer to casting competitions as lotteries, perhaps we should take this more seriously and start measuring both velocity and direction(1) during competitions. Just by gathering that data, we would have more intelligence to make informed decisions on whether or not to control for both in future competitions.

(1) I get the point that the court is aligned to the wind in the first place, but at least in NL (crowded) courts are often influenced by winds suddenly being diverted by contextual elements, buildings, treelines, windmills , etc.

Hi Richard

Nope, I was just not sure what kind of rules you would be using and I didn't want to suggest something which doesn't fly with the existing rules. The WC in flycasting rules says over water and every half meter Just modify them and do it over grass and measure. A bunch of screwdrivers are handy as measuring devices, the officailas can mark the fluff quickly on grass. Alternatively, half a tennisball, if someone is nervous they will hang up on the screwdriver. Sweden usually uses the half tennisball over grass.

Yeah, measuring windspeed and direction would be a great thing. Only real problem is where to measure, how many places to measure, and then getting the manpower to measure. Getting people to help in a competition with measuring is probably the hardest part. Quite often it's the competitors that helps doing that in the smaller competitions, and in places where there isn't big funding behind. My son does atletics and enjoys competing, at clublevel it's alot of parents helping out at the comps, at the bigger more official ones, there's still a bunch of parents helping out.
Watching skijump in January, one can only drool seeing how windspeed is measured and in real time shown on screen all along the court. And then factored in to the results. Guess it takes a bit of funding Last years WC in flycasting was the first one where there was measured windspeed for records, if I'm not mistaken it didn't really work, and the device was placed in between the courts, so it could easily show a different windspeed than was present at the far lane 50 odd meters away.. Mostly when people complain about lottery at comps, it when there are so many competitors that the qual takes all morning and ends in the afternoon. Imagine being up in the mountains, casting in still cold air first thing in the morning, two hours later when the sun gets above the mountains, the hotter air starts moving, and the noon casters are getting a nice breeze, and then the last batch gets shifting winds when the sun drops behind the next mountain... Get the quals over in as equal conditions as possible means alot. At national level that is usually not a problem.

Cheers
Lasse


Cheers
Lasse

[Paul Arden]

A screwdriver will work, but some may not be as nimble. A rod rest is a great alternative. Instead of half tennis balls you could try clogs for a more traditional approach.

Wind speeds and conditions would be fascinating. We really don’t have the data for this. But you can buy weather stations that link to apps quite cheaply. We really need to do this.

Cheers, Paul

[FishNoGeek]

I'm shamelessly obsessed with weather and meteorology, though I can claim to understand precious little of the actual science. But I did break down a few years back and bought myself a birthday present, a Tempest Weather Station (https://weatherflow.com/tempest-home-weather-system/) for the house. I succumbed to a package deal that included a bluetooth anemometer (https://weatherflow.com/weather-meter/) that now lives in my boat bag, and we occasionally play with it on sporty days out in the bay. It connects to a phone app that's quite slick.

That said, my deeply unscientific impression is that it's really quite difficult to get wind readings that are consistent enough to be scientifically useful. The unit doesn't turn by itself to measure the strongest wind - you have to face the device into the wind you want to measure. Change the angle just a wee bit and your numbers jump all over the place.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be useful, only that there's likely some learning curve involved in figuring out how to get reliable-ish numbers out of it. But it's a super fun little toy!

[HenryM]

Hello Richard,

I think it's great that you want to take your "little competitions" to a more official level. More meaning in the competition translates into more fun for many participants (before and/or during the competition).

I have a few thoughts - often from the organizer's perspective.
- If you plan to have only one court going at the same time (less equipment, less man power, more attention to each caster), you might be able to accommodate some of the variable wind direction by letting the caster choose the direction just before he/she starts casting. It makes sense to give the caster only very few predetermined options - say two or three stakes/posts at the far end of the court. For Trout Distance with its shorter distances, that relatively easy (say on a soccer field). It's a bit harder for Salmon Distance.
- We have used various types of stakes to mark the distances before measuring after casting time is over. Most were a variation of: a long nail with the head removed and driven into a piece of a wooden broom stick. If you want to measure the top 3 casts for tie breakers, you want at least 4 stakes per station (about one broomstick's worth ).
- At our Western Tournaments (where me measure "to the nearest foot"), we generally don't bother with stakes (or other markers). We use two judges and an easily readable tape laid out on the ground (in the selected direction). One judge goes to the spot of the fly (calling "score" as soon as he/she knows where the spot is so that the caster can start to retrieve), places a foot next to the fly to 'remember' the spot (because the caster is going to pull it away), and then directs the other judge up/down the tape for a perpendicular measurement. The judge on the tape reads the distance (to the nearest foot, half-meter, or decimeter?) and calls it out for both recording the distance and for the caster to know (a clear advantage over the stakes method). I don't think it ever happened that the judges weren't done with those tasks before the caster made the next cast. This is a very simple method - provided you can assign two earlier/later casters to do the judging. BTW, other distance competitors are generally in good enough shape to be able to judge distance on grass quite adequately.
- If you are so strongly encouraged to measure the wind, then you should. In Norway, they had the wind meter but no man power or other method to actually use those meters. At Casting tournaments, they dedicate one helper to observe the wind meter while casting is going on. That helper raises a red flag when the wind speed is above the 3 m/s limit that disqualifies records. So there is only binary Yes/No wind information. I can envision a more detailed scheme that doesn't require quite as much real-time manpower. Assume you have a connected meter and the connected device (phone, laptop, ...) can continuously record the wind speed along with the time. In addition, the judge can record the time when a caster begins casting. Hence, we can later search the recorded wind speed for the time slot during which the caster was casting. For extra long casts (potential records?), the judges could also note the time when that cast was made, which would narrow the time range where to inspect the recorded wind speed. BTW, phones are periodically synchronized with the accurate time of the transmission tower. Hence, one can trust their time down to the second.
- If you can manage to have the competition on freshly cut grass, it should be very easy to see a brightly colored fluff that has the minimum size as required by the Fly Casting rules. This should pretty much assure that even inexperienced judges (that don't already find the fluff in the air and more or less know where it's going to land) can find it without much delay. In a way, it becomes even easier than on water.

Henry