I agree with your performance definition Paul and I include non dominant hand casting as well, I’m using it more and more in teaching as well as fishing. For me, I want slack at the fly and with a dry I stick the longest tippet on I can manage and still hit the target area under the prevailing condi...

Not arm centric and with torso twist?

The dog seems impressed! Sadly, no longer with us. It was too hot for him but he wouldn’t go indoors until I did. How do you structure your presentation casting lessons, Vince? Do you teach using key casts or is it all line manipulation without cast names? Very much the latter. I prefer to set typi...

Not really John, I can look at any number of fly casting championship videos and see a closely bound objective generating a narrow range of solutions. You know what task and what equipment you will use every single time you compete. You will never be handed a 10’ #5 rod and line with a team of 3 bea...

Yes the constraints are tighter. But that’s what happens as we progress; the constraints get narrower which is how to develop our performance. I’m sure this is another Groundhog Day but how do you define performance? You could argue that random equipment and random tasks more like Danish Games are ...

The nice thing about these casts is you can practise in your garden (if you have a garden), even if it’s small. In fact you can probably practise indoors. I do Paul, I’ll do it in my lunch break when I’m working from one. These are typical exercises, I vary the rod/line set up, the targets are all ...

My objective in short line casting is put the fly in the desired area, with the desired delivery line layout. That’s good John, lots of potential solutions - curves, mends, piles and the opportunity to improvise casts. What top level objectives do you pick up on when instructing a student in open w...

I have a bamboo one on Wednesday, all he knows is that it’s 8ft long and has asked me to tell him what line he should use because the rod has no marking. The last time I did something like this it turned out to be a saltwater spinning rod. I’ve also been working on some drills to simulate fast water...

May I add line length judgement, roll casting variations, hauling, hover and managing variations in rod plane to your list Paul. In reality these are skills not objectives. How often do you guys teach the objective of “Being able to hit a target randomly placed between 8 and 15 metres ” with bamboo...

Being able to hit a target randomly placed between 8 and 15 metres requires loop control, trajectory adjustments, a well positioned backcast, and straight tracking. Would these be useful casting skills to have? Absolutely. Being able to do it sitting, kneeling or chest deep in water with any rod an...