The Board

Dear Paul,

Thanks for providing all the additional information to the videos as well as the extra videos you posted. It must have been quite a lot of work.

I have a question on the fishing distance video. It's only when you emphasize that your hands should be opposite from each other on the haul, that you fully stretch your casting arm on the back cast. So am I right to assume that for a 30 meter / 90 foot cast, it ought to be enough to move your casting hand up to your shoulder, maybe slightly beyond that, but not stretch the entire arm behind your shoulder?

Best,

Richard

Hi Richard, sorry for the delay - I totally missed this. Yes for a 90’ cast you only need something like a 60’ carry. A backcast to your shoulder is certainly sufficient (and should be learned first).

Cheers, Paul

The full arm stretch backcast is “170/stopless” style. While it has uses even for Snakehead Shots and reverse casts, its primary use is for distance casts over 115ft. I always recommend learning the compact stroke first, but it is a wonderful style to learn and has many applications outside of distance. For example if I’m casting three flies on a long Leader I am much more likely to use this style of backcast as opposed to setting a tight loop.

However straightening the *hauling* arm is usually one of the sudden improvements students learn when they work on their double haul.

Cheers, Paul

Hi Paul, thank you very much. So far my humble improvements in 'distance' have come from focusing on better technique, rather than on 'further away'. The reason I particularly like your answer is that by stretching your arm, it becomes so easy to violate the 'within a plane' principle. Moreover, it's much cooler to cast that way, and still do a 30' cast: it makes casting look effortless.... :P

Cheers, Richard

Hi Richard,

I’m closed stance “accuracy style” for virtually all of my fishing, including shots to around 80 or 90 ft. After that I tend to open up because tangles are far less likely using the 170 for distance (it doesn’t have to be max effort, in fact for a long fishing cast 170 is less effort than the compact distance stroke).

Cheers, Paul

Incidentally that’s an excellent point regards the casting plane. It’s important to get the body out of the way of the hand/arm with the 170. This is probably not discussed in enough detail.

Cheers, Paul

A few different "styles" throwing to 90ish feet:

Most relaxed and with most effortless feel is the last one, but the first one is claimed to be it



https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8ueYJinSrKM

Cheers
Lasse