Maintaining line tension

[Paul Arden]

I know. That was the first argument I made

[Lou Bruno]

One additional thing I try to maintain is the 180 degree rule on my pick up. This sends my back cast "back & up."
Lou

[Carol]

The CCI exam has PULD on it. Task #16 asks you to teach (and perform it). But I totally agree that it is completely different on water than on land. On water, you can see the line "waterfall out of the honey," and the water provides adequate tension to actually feel it as you lift. Doing on grass, snow or asphalt, it doesn't have the tension, so getting the rod to load is trickier (in my tenderfoot opinion). The other thing about the pick up is that it is observed by the examiner on every single casting task except the roll cast tasks.

[Carol]

Another thing, so I've heard, is that not all exam venues have water, so the candidate has to perform the task on the grass. In places where there is water, the candidate has the option. Same thing for the roll cast. It does make some sense in that, most of the time when teaching a group of stark raving beginners, it's going to be on grass in a park, and an instructor needs to be able to demonstrate the casts in that environment.

[Paul Arden]

I had these discussions for about 15 years. I’m not going to discuss it any more However as an instructor you need to be able to do both grass and water.

It’s not loading the rod on the backcast. We use the casting stroke for that. Most problems are forgetting to make a slow lift over grass because there is no tension/line stick.

My biggest problem was that I was passing CIs years ago who couldn’t make an acceptable PUALD over water. You can’t fail someone for not being able to do something that is not on the test. And because it wasn’t on the test they never learned it.

Cheers, Paul

[Lasse Karlsson]

The CCI exam has PULD on it. Task #16 asks you to teach (and perform it). But I totally agree that it is completely different on water than on land. On water, you can see the line "waterfall out of the honey," and the water provides adequate tension to actually feel it as you lift. Doing on grass, snow or asphalt, it doesn't have the tension, so getting the rod to load is trickier (in my tenderfoot opinion). The other thing about the pick up is that it is observed by the examiner on every single casting task except the roll cast tasks.

Hi Carol

Yes it does, but it was only added there in 2015, long after Paul had already left the building
And yes, one can make it completly different on grass than on water, but the key here is to make it as much as possible the same.
Rod load is a dark and dangerous road to travel down, filled with myths of big springs and better rods casts further and makes their own coffee, very nutty coffee that is

Cheers
Lasse

[Carol]

And yes, one can make it completly different on grass than on water, but the key here is to make it as much as possible the same.
Rod load is a dark and dangerous road to travel down, filled with myths of big springs and better rods casts further and makes their own coffee, very nutty coffee that is

Dark roads are scary, especially when it's down a slippery slope. And whips, big springs, and levers are creepy.

So, how do youlike to express the difference in tension felt between doing a lift on grass versus water?

[Malik]

Hi Carol,
Do you have more problems to do the PUALD on the grass than on the water ? And if yes, could you tell us a bit more about it ? The main issues I have currently observed are more about doing it on the water — generally because some people makes an abrupt acceleration at the beginning of their backward stroke which tends to over-bend the rod tip and to create a TL or a TL tendency on the backcast. In this regard and for the same length/mass of line, grass is more forgiving — according to me.
Best Regards
Malik

[Carol]

For me, it's been not getting enough tension on the back cast. The loops have gotten better, and if I were an owl who could turn my head 180 degrees, I probably never would have struggled so long with this. Where I find the biggest problem is on non-viscous surfaces where the back cast loop does not have enough tension in it and looks like a piece of overcooked capellini flying through turbulence. Overall it has good shape, but is wiggly. When on the water, the loop has more tension by default.

I think Lasse just reaffirmed for me how it should be done: Lift, lift, flick. Just like Paul does it in the above video.

[Malik]

Hi Carol,
If one part of the problem is to be able to observe your loop on the back, have you considered to practice for a while with a slightly open stance ? Just enough open to see comfortably your back loop without any risk of a torticollis or lateral uncontrolled rotation and practicing like that for a while, before returning back to a parallel or closed stance ? It's sometimes critical to be able to relate immediately the sensations you feel during the cast to the results you actually get.
Even if it seems paradoxical, another trick that (maybe) could help you to better feel your line when you practice on the grass is to practice with a little more line length than the 40 feet required for CI certification and to progressively reduce the length.
You certainly know the paper of Sekhar Bahadur about the PULD from the FFI learning center ? Excellent one to prepare your CI PULD.
Best Regards
Malik