The Board

I was just going over the EFFA master exam test specifications.
They ask:
- Explain the principles and core elements of Old English Casting
- Explain the principles and core elements of American Casting

I never heard of this two styles of casting.
Can someone explain what they are?

Cheers, Bart

England: book under arm (either Holy Bible or The Compleat Angler), standing in a cooking pot, muttering “these damned natives are burning my shoes”.

America: “Hey Gringo this river ain’t big enough for the both of us”. Low side arm, quick on the draw.

It’s simple really.

I love the fact that the Americans are calling 170 “European Style” It’s from Texas!

Are you taking the Euro Masters? That’s great man. I look forward to hearing how you get on. It may have changed now but they weren’t so keen on the 170 last I heard.

Cheers, Paul

It's all a bunch of dusty nonsense.

Here in the states, it's 'Lefty style' or 'Joan style'.
Joan style is West Coast competition style. Lefty is baseball throwing style.

Craig

No Paul, I am not going to take the masters exam.
I am not even a member anymore.
Was just interested to see what the current requirments are.

Cheers, Bart

Ian Blackburn, nice casting the "English style."
http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/cane-trout

How interesting. Creep in 1974. Surely that must pre-date Bill and his father using the term? That’s a great find, Thomas - I’ve never seen that before.

I didn’t learn casting “properly” until 1996 - 16 years after starting fly fishing - and then I learned through Peter MacKenzie-Philps Fly Casting Handbook. That was quite similar to this although he taught to lift to 10, backcast 10-12.30, that there should be no more than two finger gap between the rod butt and the forearm, then back to 10am and lowering the rod. Rather similar and quite regimented apart from Peter’s forward cast which was like taking the thumb straight out along an imaginary curtain rail and turning the thumb over.

(No mention of casting arc or tip path in either of them!).

Cheers, Paul

Always interesting Paul, to see such old films.
You can probably casting "English" in different ways.

Ian was in Germany once, I saw him throwing here.
Nice gentle loops.

Cheers,
Thomas

Great little film... the voice over was just the right side of reassuringly old fashioned Received Pronunciation and all’s well with the world

Enjoyed watching that, thanks for posting. I am always intrigued when watching and casting cane, the arc does not seem to be any larger than when using graphite rods on similar lengths of line. I have a Hardy cane rod built in 1932 on which I use a 5 weight line and was recently playing with arc size relative to a modern 5 weight graphite rod. I did not notice any change in rod hand movement. I must be missing something given the statements about having to match casting arc to rod bend. The cane bends more than the graphite but arc can remain the same. Lasse had some videos on this topic, which were very revealing.

John

The way I see it is Joan's style = western tournament which is fundamentally European traditional.