Humidity, Air Conditions and Casting

[Walter]

Paul,

The psychological aspect would be in addition to the physical factors. You get a difference of 10 feet but someone else who experiences the “dead air” feeling less often might get a difference of 15 feet initially and as they adjust mentally they improve to the point where they only experience a 10 foot difference. The psychological aspects aren’t going to overcome the physical aspects but they can contribute to overall performance.

[Paul Arden]

I don’t think it’s psychological Walter. Not after ten years! It’s significant and about 10 feet. Maybe it’s not humidity that’s the cause. Here we tend to blame Hantu Tetek when things don’t go according to plan.

Cheers, Paul

How far can you cast in a real flat calm? Or indoors?

Cheers
Lasse

I understand the question but just because it’s humid here doesn’t mean it’s flat calm.

[Walter]

I know this is a technical forum but I think it’s important not to overlook the psychological aspects as well. Every competitive athlete knows there are good days and not so good days when it comes to training. Sometimes the reasons are purely physical and identifiable and you accept it and do the best you can. Other times the issue is not physical or, in the case of distance casting, not so easy to identify.

From a coaching standpoint how do you get an athlete to still get in a productive workout and overcome the psychological aspects? I’ll use weightlifting as an example because I have some familiarity with it and we know that if an athlete is having an off day it’s probably psychological. Weightlifters use something they call jerk waves (I’ll let the giggles subside before I go on…)

If you’re familiar with weightlifting you’ll know what a clean and jerk is. Typically a lifter practicing clean and jerk will target doing reps of 3 with 80 or 90% of their personal best single lift. They avoid going for pbs on single lifts every practice because of the risk of injury and other reasons but when working out they keep records of every workout and look to improve the weight they use for multiple repetitions. If they’re having difficulty matching their previous workout (let’s say they are having trouble doing a set of 3 with 80% of what they did in the previous workout, I.e. last time they did 150 lbs for three reps and today they can’t do 120). The idea is to step down to 80% of their current weight (96 lbs from my example) and do one or more sets concentrating on form. Often they find that when they return to the weight they are struggling with they find they can do it now.

How would this example apply to distance cast practice? As Lasse points out, he sometimes tries too hard and messes up. The jerk wave approach would have him put a marker at 80% of his best and practice hitting the marker with excellent form for a number of casts. After that, go back to his regular practice.

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

During the summer, it is very normal for me to be casting in what I expect are less than optimum conditions: temps in the 90 F range, dead wind, and humidity at or above 90%. You could include the fact that I am at sea level.

And that is a usual day. Sometimes it is even wetter.

Change one thing - add just a little wind- from any direction - and my casts grow by up to 10 feet.

[Willy Franzen]

I know this is a technical forum but I think it’s important not to overlook the psychological aspects as well. Every competitive athlete knows there are good days and not so good days when it comes to training. Sometimes the reasons are purely physical and identifiable and you accept it and do the best you can. Other times the issue is not physical or, in the case of distance casting, not so easy to identify.

From a coaching standpoint how do you get an athlete to still get in a productive workout and overcome the psychological aspects? I’ll use weightlifting as an example because I have some familiarity with it and we know that if an athlete is having an off day it’s probably psychological. Weightlifters use something they call jerk waves (I’ll let the giggles subside before I go on…)

If you’re familiar with weightlifting you’ll know what a clean and jerk is. Typically a lifter practicing clean and jerk will target doing reps of 3 with 80 or 90% of their personal best single lift. They avoid going for pbs on single lifts every practice because of the risk of injury and other reasons but when working out they keep records of every workout and look to improve the weight they use for multiple repetitions. If they’re having difficulty matching their previous workout (let’s say they are having trouble doing a set of 3 with 80% of what they did in the previous workout, I.e. last time they did 150 lbs for three reps and today they can’t do 120). The idea is to step down to 80% of their current weight (96 lbs from my example) and do one or more sets concentrating on form. Often they find that when they return to the weight they are struggling with they find they can do it now.

How would this example apply to distance cast practice? As Lasse points out, he sometimes tries too hard and messes up. The jerk wave approach would have him put a marker at 80% of his best and practice hitting the marker with excellent form for a number of casts. After that, go back to his regular practice.

In my strength training (which I have been way from for too long), I started using a concept called RPE or "rate of perceived exertion." Basically you count how many more reps you think you could do, and count back from 10. A max is an RPE 10. RPE 9 means you have one more left in you. I found it pretty effective for dealing with the off days when you're not hitting the weights you should be able to (whether it's physical or psychological). Your goal for the day is 3 sets of 5 reps at an RPE 8 instead of 3 sets of 5 reps at a predetermined weight. This allows you to feel things out on your warmup sets and go for more or less weight depending on how strong gravity is that day.

Not sure how this applies to fly casting, but I think many of the posters on here can feel when they really hit a cast and guess how far it should have gone in normal conditions. I'm sure you could come up with your own "rate of perceived distance" and satisfy a session based on how your casts feel instead of how far they go.

Getting back to the actual topic, I've noticed the same thing. Very humid conditions kills distance. Steve Rajeff was nice enough to spend a little time helping me with my casting at the Sandy River Speyclave 7-8 years ago. It was in Oregon, so it was a very typically wet but not quite raining kind of day. I think I made a comment about how my casts didn't feel like they were going as far since the air was heavier, and he corrected me and said that humid air is actually less dense but that he notices the same thing. I wish I remembered more from that part of our conversation, but I don't think we came up with any explanation as to why .

A few experiments might help unravel the mystery. You could weigh the same lines, leaders, and fluff/flies in humid and non-humid environments. See if there's any difference. Or measure velocities of casts with the same amount of carry in varying conditions. At the very least, it shouldn't be hard to eliminate a few theories from contention. I'm sure you all can come up with more ideas than I can.

Do you guys find that it's the shoot that is most inhibited or every part of the cast? Can you carry less line in humid conditions or just have shorter overall casts?

[Lasse Karlsson]

I don’t think it’s psychological Walter. Not after ten years! It’s significant and about 10 feet. Maybe it’s not humidity that’s the cause. Here we tend to blame Hantu Tetek when things don’t go according to plan.

Cheers, Paul

How far can you cast in a real flat calm? Or indoors?

Cheers
Lasse

I understand the question but just because it’s humid here doesn’t mean it’s flat calm.

Not sure you understand the question, if you do not answer it

Humidity doesn't mean flat calm, but just because the air moves doesn't mean it helps either. Knowing a baseline for a real flat calm cast means we know how much less we get in humidity conditions. You say 10 feet, but 10 feet from your best condition cast? Or 10 feet from ok conditionsir 10 feet from headwind conditions? Get my point?

Cheers
Lasse

[Paul Arden]

Hi Lasse,

High 1-teens possibly in flat calm in UK should be comfortable/expected. When the stars align 120’. I haven’t measured indoors enough to know. So if that’s the baseline I’m about ten feet less in the tropics. Extremely difficult to throw 110’ in these conditions.

Very interesting Walter. As one of my students said this week:

Going for maximum distance isn’t really training for distance. It is a test of the training.

Cheers, Paul

[VGB]

The relationship between drag and turbulence is reasonably well known but surface layer turbulence can have many root causes and we are usually casting in turbulent air, atmospheric conditions tend to instability. I think that focusing on a single measurable property such as humidity is a mistake and an attempt to oversimplify the problem.

I have only observed this effect in still air, mostly but not exclusively in cool temperatures.

Regards

Vince

[James9118]

Hi Lasse,

High 1-teens possibly in flat calm in UK should be comfortable/expected. When the stars align 120’. I haven’t measured indoors enough to know. So if that’s the baseline I’m about ten feet less in the tropics. Extremely difficult to throw 110’ in these conditions.

Very interesting Walter. As one of my students said this week:

Going for maximum distance isn’t really training for distance. It is a test of the training.

Cheers, Paul

Hi Paul,

These are the results from the first time I ever cast with you at the BFCC (and my 2nd ever competition - actually the first time I cast a #5 in comp). Some 'flat calms' are worse than others, you still beat me by 3 inches though

#5F Distance – Mike Heritage 106′ 9″ Jonathan Tomlinson 106′ 7″ Paul Arden 99′ 11″ James Evans 99′ 8″ Andrew Bagshaw 95′ 9″ Terry Jenner 77′ 6″ Tracy Thomas 71′ 2″ David Fisher 66′ 8″

Cheers, James

[Paul Arden]

Blimey those are very low. I think that might be my shortest 5WT comp result of all time Even into a headwind in Montana I’ve thrown further!

I believe my longest cast in Malaysia is 127’ with a tropical MED5, HT12 and a tailwind. Hopefully we can hold an event here in the next few years and post the results.

Cheers, Paul