How did you go about fishing casting to competion casting?

[Phil31]

So I currently am looking to get into competition stuff. Majority of my casting experience has just been fishing casting. But I have enjoyed the sport of casting as a thing on it's own and have spent time practicing distance casting. I've gotten into the habit of filming to nit pick myself and post here as I have for tips and suggestions. So wondering how to go about getting into competition casting which I think I would enjoy?

Did you meet any pre requisites (in terms of distance and technique) before getting involved?

Any other general advice welcome.

Cheers

[Paul Arden]

Hi Phil,

This is a great question! Are you in Whistler or Auckland?

The first thing I’d say is that there are lots of comp casters on the Board, all of whom are free with information. I think knowledge belongs to everyone and I know I wouldn’t be one tenth of the caster I am today without sharing everything I know, because you always get far more back than you put out. In fact I doubt there would even be an international WCs with fly fishing tackle if it wasn’t for Sexyloops and this attitude, which is widespread throughout the games.

I personally got into comp casting around 20 years back when giving a lesson to a comp caster who at the end of the lesson cast further than me using his old technique! That was an eye-opener for me and I immediately had to revise everything I thought I knew about fly casting and change and develop my technique. Some of those early attempts are on Sexyloops

I was in the UK at the time and anyone who I thought was a half way decent caster, I would invite to “shootouts” – which were casting weekends in my garden. This grew and it wasn’t uncommon to have 8 or 10 casters competing against each other, out of a pool of 20 something casters. I learned a huge amount through these weekends and still do.

Unfortunately there are no fly casters near me in the jungle and I haven’t found enough enough interest in Malaysia yet but I am working on this! One or two competitors makes a huge difference and speeds up learning considerably.

Stefan Siikavaara once asked me the same question, as to how he could best improve and I said build a team of likeminded people and teach them and you will get back what you put in. He wasn’t sure at first but he did this anyway. Since then he has told me that this was the best advice I could have given him but I was wrong - he got ten times back what he put in! So if you can find some likeminded people I would recommend regularly meeting and casting together.

This is not always possible of course but you will find many friends here on the Board who will help. I would love to meet you at the World Championships and see you place well and even win a medal or two! I think I can speak for everyone here when I say that Neither Canada nor New Zealand has a team which a) makes it very easy for you to make the team! and b) hopefully inspires others to do the same.

You need: a tape measure, a video camera and I would thoroughly recommend picking up accuracy at the same time as developing distance. There is a crossover in techniques.

Some other advice I can give you, is to get used to casting in front of other people and under pressure. But first up is to develop the technique and throw down the tape. I never found it to be a steady increase in distance but instead it’s jumps. You get stuck at throwing 110-115 for example. And then suddenly you pop the odd 120. I remember on my second year of distance casting I popped three casts over 120. It took a while to figure out how but I always knew there was more and suddenly I was expecting 120s. And when I was expecting 120s suddenly a longer cast would fly and so I knew there was still more.

Also one other piece of advice. Don’t get alarmed by some of the distances you see and read about. There are conditions when 120 is almost impossible. I’ve made the 5WT finals twice with casts of 115-120. That’s still a huge cast when the conditions are “flat”.

One more thing! Casting in Whistler is different to Auckland. In Calgary I can carry 105’ of line. At sea level I usually peak at around a 95/96’ carry with the MED.

As part of your training get used to throwing with the clock. Put yourself in the situation where you are in competition and have 2 or 3 minutes to throw your longest casts. I work on 2 minutes and then in competition when I have 3 minutes it feels like forever!

Cheers, Paul

[Lasse Karlsson]

And in the WC, where we have 4 minutes for the single handers, Paul runs out of steam half way

Personally, I got in to comp casting through SL, the casting sport died in Denmark at the same time as I started flyfishing for real, and I felt I missed out on a huge learning opportunity (I was right in retro spec) so just went about trying to throw far and accurate for my fishing. Found SL a couple of decades ago, was already teaching but got interested in getting better in that, and found that there was something Paul called shootouts, and thought, hey that sounds like a great idea. Got a few organised, had a ton of fun and learned loads, got the second flycasting club started in DK and through that got a Danish Championship started, and never looked back actually.
I agree with Paul, jump feet first in there, it steepens the learning curve, and the best thing is to get others to practice with, shootouts are great for that, but remember the first rule of shootout club, dont talk about shootout club
Having someone to practice with, pushes you faster than doing it alone.

Good luck!

Cheers
Lasse

[Paul Arden]

4 minutes? No wonder it feels so long

[Phil31]

Hi Phil,

This is a great question! Are you in Whistler or Auckland?

......

Cheers, Paul

Thanks Paul this is all very valuable advice. I currently have a small to medium social media fb and youtube following that I could and will use to try and get some kind of fly casting competition initiative. You can check out On The Fly NZ if you like.

I think I will look at getting some kind of likeminded community together.

So I am in neither Whistler or Auckland anymore I am in Turangi, home of the Tongariro River. Interesting what you say about the effect of altitude. In Turangi we are 380m above sea level.

I have a few more questions in terms of set ups. What kind of gear is typical of a competition set up? Is it all 5 weight? and is there a standardised leader length/diameter? Tapered leader? Is it a piece of yarn that is casted?

I can relate a lot to the experience of rebuilding your cast from scratch. Im 26 and have been fly fishing since I could hold a rod. Within the past couple of years I've made a huge focus of trying to perfect things, and yes this did mean deconstructing my cast and rebuilding using mainly this website as a bible and a reference point of the rebuild. Very glad to have done that!

Anyway I'm off to buy a tape!

[Phil31]

And in the WC, where we have 4 minutes for the single handers, Paul runs out of steam half way

.....

Good luck!

Cheers
Lasse

Interesting, the common theme I'm seeing and hearing here is that building a group of people is a key to learning in this sport! I live in a town built on fly fishing so surely I can rally something up.

At this point I only have or know one other fisherman in my area who is passionate about fly casting as a sport. I have learnt alot off park casting sessions with him. So there we go 2 people. Not much but a start!

[Paul Arden]

Hi Phil,

Here are the rules: https://www.icsf-castingsport.com/uploa ... nrules.pdf but in shootouts we would throw everything. BFCC has other events, eg 7WT

I don’t find a noticeable difference until about 800m. West Yellowstone is 2000m I definitely noticed it there!

Turangi? I spent a bit of time there myself. I used to run around the Big O in the mornings after dropping off guests for the Tongariro Crossing. I would have a short swim in the lake too, damn near froze my nuts off. I also ran the Tongariro Northern Circuit for my 29th Birthday and spent most of the rest of the day laying on a couch

Some bloody good fishing but I would never mention the spots online. You’ll know them anyway If you run into Clint or Janeve Green say hello from me!

One caster to compete with is how it starts. That’s how it’s started for me.

Cheers, Paul

[John Waters]

G'day Phil,

I do a bit of casting in Melbourne so if you are ever here, don't hesitate to give me a yell. Equally, if I am over your way love to have a cast and a chat.

John

[James9118]

I didn't know fly casting as a sport in its own right existed until I saw posters advertising a BFCC event at a tackle store/fishery near to where I live. I went along with Tracy and we both really enjoyed it. I had a go in the #7 competition and did ok, however, watching the likes of Mike Heritage, John Reynolds, JT, Alex Titov etc. I realised my self taught style was all brute force and ignorance. I came away really wanting to cast like them - that same evening I discovered Sexyloops on the web.

The thing with fly casting sport I've found is that the competitors know it's extremely niche (in fact it's a niche of a niche sport ), as such, they'll do everything they can to encourage new entrants into the sport. The vast majority of them will tell you everything they know in the hope of strengthening the competition.

My only regret is that I didn't find casting sport earlier in life when I was young and fit, I think I could have been quite good with a couple of decades of extra practice .

James

[Paul Arden]

[I’ve edited your replies Phil so it doesn’t repost the entire initial post when replying. I’ll look to see if there is a Board modification to do this automatically. I bet there is!]

James is right, I think everyone involved would like to see the sport grow. The more competition there is the better we will become as individual casters.

It’s been interesting for me, because when I started 100-115’ was elite level. There were very few casters in the world who could achieve this. I initially started out at 105’ and when I started throwing into the 120s there was very little competition. We really had to figure out how to do it, and we are still figuring out how to do it!

It’s technique pure and simple. I have always enjoyed carrying a long length of line in the air, shaping loops. That is why I enjoy casting the MED and DTs the most.

I was planning on visiting NZ this year, about now actually. Hopefully next year I’ll be able to do this again. We shall see.

Quite a few of the Mebourne casters fish Turangi every year. I first met a few of them in Bellbird Lodge a long time ago. It would perhaps be very useful connection to make.

Cheers, Paul