The Board

Practicing and studying continues.I should have asked this in my first post are people happy to have questions from somebody who like myself is only ever going to be an amateur caster who is only doing this for the love of fly fishing and casting?If so please bare with me if I some of my questions seem basic but I'm determined to achieve my goals this winter.
I was watching this video of Christopher Rownes and in order to get anywhere near throwing those kind of loops I have to adopt a style like his,arm out to the side with that sort of lifting action near the end of the stroke.No matter what I do with the Jason Borgers foundation cast style I can't get anywhere near those tight loops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeMb1LjHmPE

Hi troutman,
You can ask whatever you want
Do you think you are able to post a video of you current casting?
That will really help to see where your casting can be improved.

Cheers, Bart

Good questions Troutman!

1 absolutely! There are very few people here who don’t put fishing before casting. Fishing always comes first for me.

2 I would thoroughly recommend to throw over the tip (JB) for both distance and accuracy. This should be your core practise.

How about casting using only a few meters of flyline plus leader using a vertical stroke/plane? Those loops should be tight if you raise your elbow in the backcast and lower it on your forward cast with minimum effort.

Videos would be fantastic!

Cheers, Paul

Will take a wee bit of time to get video organised cause I haven't done it before.Will try the vertical stroke /plane tomorrow.Just to clarify it is possible to get the pointed loops like in the video using this stroke?

Pointed - Yes!

But rarely as narrow because if you throw this tight the line will clip the rod tip as it comes through. Vertical loops are better for both accuracy and distance. Throwing off-plane looks better for the camera.

Cheers, Paul

No disrespect to Chris by the way!!! He is a fantastic caster and an even better instructor. He is a very good friend of mine and we taught for many years together in the past. He is one of the nicest guys I know

My advice would be to spend 90% of your time learning to throw the line over the rod tip with a vertical rod plane. And then have fun with the rest.

Cheers, Paul

A few years ago when I first started to practice more regularly I pretty much practiced casting more off the side, my casting has definitely improved with focussing more over the rod tip.
I’d say (for what it’s worth... I ain’t no casting instructor ), spend some time getting to grips with the over the tip/foundation style, last year I pretty much completely focussed on that, as it really helped develop my all round casting stroke.
I’ve now gone back to practicing both.... it’s easier to be bang on accurate when casting over the rod tip, but fishing SW rivers in the U.K. 75 % of my time is spent casting off to the side or under the rod tip... in fact from a purely fishing skill it makes more sense for me to practice off the side and under the rod tip more

I found pantomiming really helped develop the foundation cast.... much to my wife’s initial amusement... and later irritation... I had a chopstick lying around and used to watch tv / chat to people on the phone pantomiming the cast

When you tilt the casting plane you can still throw over the tip of the rod. I would say then it was an additional supplementary skill to cast the loop in different planes to the rod plane.

I’m not sure if the links still work but this is a good article http://www.sexyloops.com/articles/loopcontrol.shtml

Cheers, Paul

I went through a phase of dreaming about - and striking for - Snakehead in my sleep, Matt.

I found that vertical casting is the best way to control those long leaders. With a too tight loop thrown on the side of the tip the final unrolling of the tippet often just crumble and accuracy and control is lost.
It's also a great feeling throwing
Over the tip, smooth and effortless in another way.

But as previous answers it's good to practice both

Simon