Welcome Bill Gammel!!

[Bill Gammel]

Hi Lasse, How many years has it been? Sorry I am not better at keeping in touch.

In 1988 my Dad and I were asked to write a booklet for the FFF on how to fly cast. I was interested in trying to make a living in the fly fishing world. So my dad said that he thought this was going to be my chance to get noticed. So we started working on how to write the book. The problem was that fly casting instruction was very stylistic. So we started reading, asking questions, and traveling with a video camera to as many FFF events as possible. Every one had “principles” to follow in order to be good like them. We started listing essential like statements that we had heard and then start evaluating them. At the time I was masterful, if I have to say so myself, at mimicking Lefty Kreh, Joan and Lee Wulff, Jim Green, Mel, and Steve. We found me of the statements were essential to their style not to others. However there was also a common thread running through all of them. We narrowed it down to the most essential candidates and then started trying to determine exactly what they were trying to say. We landed on the five that you know. Not one of the concepts were original to my dad or I, but we did restate some of them to refine their meaning. This led to one of my favorite complements. Jim Green met me in the hall at the FFF conclave in Livingston in the early 90’s. I had no idea that he new who I was. He walked up, introduced himself, and said that dad and I had written in 24 pages what they all had tried to write in 300 pages.


Pat, There was at the time and still today discussion on whether or not the stop should be essential. We decided against it and our thinking was the proper application of power. I now feel we made the best choice to not say a stop is essential. Nothing else has come up that I would have added to the essentials of straight line, overhead, basic fly cast. After having taught the essentials for many years I reordered them in my video, making the the straight-line path the number one essential and everything else works to achieve the SLP.

[Eagle Crest]

Bill, Thanks for the advice. I catch lots of bass, mainly on poppers, but foam grasshoppers and muddler minnows work too. I've got that code dialed in. I'll have to start using insect repellent if I stay out after dark. Mosquitoes are voracious after the sun goes down. Gar cruise the surface of the pond just after sundown until it's too dark. I've tried the rope trick early in my efforts and it had no luck. I will give it another go.

I would love to catch some bowfin. Amongst my all time favorite top 10 fishing experiences was catching LARGE bowfins in Florida. Lots of large bowfins. Great fighting fish. I just haven't found them in my Louisiana location. I'm without a boat and it's tough to cast most places (from shore) where I might find them.

Thanks, Steve

[Bill Gammel]

Hey Paul,

When ever I run across a person who can not do what they know to be correct, I give him his money back and send him off to get a lesson from Paul Arden. None of them have ever come back.

This is a hard one. For an advance caster, (which i see few with this problem) I first try to tweak their style, stance, arm angle what ever in order try to find something that will click. Some need a movement they are fimiliar with, while others need to be as far from familiar as possible. It is mainly trial and error. For the beginner, what has worked the best is the step by step method i showed in the video. It starts on the ground and allows the person to learn one movement at a time. In my experience these guys compartmentalize the way they think. One thing at a time seems to work.

I will tell you. There are some I have just never helped after hours and days. I just don't know how to help them.

[Bill Gammel]

steve, the rope trick has always worked for me on long nose and spotted gar. There was another species that I have gone blank on. Possibly a short nose. It was just a small version of the alligator gar. The teeth were not needle like they were like canine teeth. The rope would not work for them. In that case I would try different sizes of stinger hooks like the bass pro use except very small. Use braided line or wire to drop little size 12 -16 chemically sharped hooks off the back. There has got to be skin in that fishes mouth somewhere even if it is down the throat a little.

If this does not work, my father loved shooting them with a bow.

[Graeme H]

...After having taught the essentials for many years I reordered them in my video, making the the straight-line path the number one essential and everything else works to achieve the SLP.

G'day Bill,

I'm aiming to achieve my IFFF CCI in September and I've also been putting SLP as number one priority when I am showing people how to cast. I can get 2 of the other 5 relating to the SLP via the correct application of force, but I'm struggling to find the correct phrases to link the length of the pause to SLP without first going through removal of slack in the cast.

So I'm saying things like (and I'm abbreviating here only):

• * SLP is the requirement for an effective cast
  * SLP is only achieved through correct application of force
  * Correct application of force is done by altering the length of time the force is applied (stroke length) and the rate of increase in that force (timing) (plus its direction, of course).
  * Any slack in the line renders correct (i.e. smooth) application of power impossible, so SLP can't be achieved
  * An incorrect pause introduces slack, which means power can't be applied correctly, which in turns means SLP can't be achieved.

Is there a more direct link between the pause and the SLP or must I continue to go through the "slack" essential to reach it?

Cheers,
Graeme

[Bill Gammel]

Graeme, Great thoughts I have been there. I went around and around on this stuff.

I would have said that the slack allows the rod to unload or straighten when it should still be bent or loaded. This causes the rod tip to rise above the projected plain of the SLP.

TOO long of a pause can cause slack. Too short of a pause I would not describe as slack. If you start forward on a 40 foot cast when only 30 feet has straighten then the rod will load with the weight of 30 feet then when the other 10 feet straighten in back the extra weight will cause the tip to drop. Then the rod will unload at the "proper stop position" but tip is too low and will have to rise for the rod to straighten. This causes an sine wave tip path and therefore a tail.

Hope this helps.

[Graeme H]

Thanks Bill. That does help me work further on my lesson plan.

Cheers,
Graeme

[Paul Arden]

Yes it's very difficult sometimes. I've come to the conclusion that there are people who need to be given the theory, practise drills and then go away and learn how to do it on their own!

How are your boys getting on as fishermen now? Do they shoot too?

Cheers Paul

[Bernd Ziesche]

The problem is out of 5 million fly fishermen 1/2 to1 million don't need you. They are pretty good. I am not saying they could not improve, but they truly cast well enough to be good fisherman. The rest are horrible, but their only goal is to be good enough that a really good guide can help them catch a few fish. From what I can tell the people that I have known from Europe, have more of a drive to be good at something not just good enough. I could be wrong.

Hi Bill,
that seems to make a lot of sense to me. Some years ago I joined the annual FFF meeting in Yellowstone. I was set up for a fly casting demo as was Charles Jardine. Only very few fly fishermen showed up to our demos. Charles performed one of the best fly casting demos I have seen (fair to say I have seen many). I was really surprised of a) the little interest of the FFF instructors being around and even more b) the very few visitors. I thought Yellowstone should have MANY flyfishermen around coming to enjoy a fine day and maybe learning some things.
In Europe this is different. Way more fly fishermen would have found their way into such a meeting. I asked Bruce Richards about this and his conclusion was similiar to yours. He also outlined the huge distances between all states in the US making it necessary to travel a lot. And then there are many instructors. Still the relation between number of fly fishermen and instructors is much worse in Germany compared to the US, I think. We have ca. 50 000 fly fishermen and 50-100 instructors (depending on what makes an instructor being one...). This is a 1000 fly fishermen per instructor ratio. The US has 100 times more fly fishermen and I don't think there are 5000 instructors?
I also think the avg. fly fisherman in Europe spends significant more time fly fishing per year compared to the US. I was told that the US has a lot of "barbeceue fly fisherman" fly fishing a bit on thanks giving, indepence day and a few more.

Besides that it was a fantastic trip to Montana. Very friendly people and every second man seemed to be a fly fisherman.
Thanks
Bernd

[Walter]

The US has 100 times more fly fishermen and I don't think there are 5000 instructors?

Are you counting the number of IFFF certified instructors? A more accurate count would be to include the fly shop employees and guides. They all think they are instructors and advertise themselves as such in order to grab their share of the big dollars that the instructors are raking in. Some of them are clueless, some are reasonable casters or fly fishers that aren't great instructors and some are actually good instructors. Most haven't bothered with certification. The problem is that most beginner or novice fly fishers don't know the difference and after a lesson they think they are instructors too. That makes the ratio closer to 1:1 in North America.

By the way, it was great meeting you in Montana!