Elbow lift/drop or not?

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

To continue a question I started elsewhere...

Assume you cannot use the lower body to enhance the cast, as in the case where you are essentially casting from your knees, as you would if you were kneeling in a canoe. Also assume you are casting along the lines of a closed stance, and specifically not using an "elbow out" style.

I have seen casters, who are much better than I, manage to make very nice casts with their elbows very close to their body while maintaining a very vertical rod plane, and thus a vertical loop. Some keep their elbow low throughout the entire cast sequence and seem to garner most input from forearm movement only. Others teach and preach a definite elbow raise and drop, thus incorporating the shoulder muscles as well.

I keep going back and forth, finding benefits from both, but I cannot decide which to settle on. This inability to choose one over the other has me all f*cked up when I am trying to concentrate on more important things... like the fish.

I'm just wondering what the casting gurus here on SL think... lift/drop or not?

[John Waters]

Not a casting guru Gary but my thoughts are that the elbow lift is dependent upon the length of line cast and the trajectory needed by each cast. The line length is the primary consideration, trajectory less critical but still a driver. The longer the line, the greater the elbow movement in the vertical plane. The steeper the trajectory, the more the elbow moves. You need not make it a choice of whether to "lift/drop. Build it into your standard stroke as an essential, it is then only a question of how much you employ in each cast. The lower your centric of gravity, the more value the elbow lift/drop adds to the cast.

John

[Paul Arden]

Don’t know about guru, Gary. If the last few days are anything to go by “klutz” would be more appropriate in my case.

While line carry length might be the predominant driver, I think of trajectory as being the dominant factor in line carry. For example with a very short line my front target is closer and so my back target needs to be higher, hence elbow lift/drop.

I also raise the elbow to tighten the loop on the backcast, particularly when drifting. And then if you lead with the elbow/rotate with the shoulder then pulling down with the elbow is the next natural movement.

Incidentally I only focus very lightly on the elbow. I know that Al Kyte used it to analyse three different styles many years ago but he only did that because if was an obvious way to easily separate them. I also know that Lefty would focus on the elbow. But I think the only time I ever mention it is when I want a student to lift his elbow into the backcast, or drop it again, particularly for short range accuracy. I think it’s better to look at the shoulder, elbow and hand as a unit – and maybe the entire body as well! But of course looking at the elbow can tell you a lot about that.

Cheers, Paul

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

John, Paul,

Thanks guys... but I was hoping to hear from some gurus!

This kneeling cast has become a necessary challenge for me. I have come to realize it is the reason I went to an elbow out style, but after watching Mac Brown do a demo about 2 years ago I could not help but see his point. He is a big proponent of the elbow lift/drop.

Where it fails for me is when I twist toward the hand holding the rod to cast. Maybe I do need to do some yoga? Luckily, I can just change hands, and that has become my default option.

Paul, it is your fault I asked this question!

In your "3 stances" video, you hardly raise your elbow at all, even when extending line to max carries in the open stance. So, obviously, you do not need the shoulder to generate enough force for those distances. I'm sure that you were casting relatively farther than I will ever need while casting from my knees in a canoe. So, maybe the shoulder is not completely necessary?

BTW... kneeling and skulling along in a canoe (one hand paddling), and slowly working a shoreline in search of fishy looking targets, is the most covert way I have found to fish the mangroves. You make no noise or waves, and your profile is about as low as you can get. But, you have much more body movement for casting than you do when sitting. There is one necessary procedure that took me a long time to realize ( I won't admit how long)... but you have to anchor before starting to cast. Otherwise you cannot keep any snook of decent size from pulling you into the roots.

Standing while casting requires significantly longer casts to remain undetected, and unless you are one of those mythical casting gurus, you can just about forget it if there is someone on a poling platform behind you way up there in the air.

BTW... has anyone seen the casting videos on Youtube from Red's Flyshop out in western US? I do not know the demonstrator's name (Joe maybe?), but he has the best demonstration of the cast for skipping flies from an underslung loop that I have seen. And, talking about an elbow drop, he not only drops to his waist, but sometimes continues to pull his elbow well behind his shoulder.

This I gotta try... off to the field I go.

[John Waters]

Hi Gary,

Apologies but I am a bit unsure of what you mean by "Where it fails for me is when I twist toward the hand holding the rod to cast". If you are right handed, does that mean it fails when you twist your shoulders clockwise? I don't understand how that would impact your elbow movement but maybe I've got that wrong.

Thanks,

John

[Paul Arden]

Hi Gary,

The down/up stops for me when I switch stances and start weight shifting. That might be very different when kneeling, I’ll have to try.

Do you kneel on one leg or two (I suppose it depends on the stability of the canoe).

If you mean by twisting the body to the right and casting in that direction, that’s when I switch to a backhand delivery. Cross-shoulder, back of the hand to target (“backcast” delivery). Under the constraints of kayak fishing I would think this would also be a good one for low horizontal shots.

I’ll have a bit of of a play this week. I bought my wife a SOT kayak for Xmas and while she can stand on it, I can’t! But I might be able to kneel. When I’ve fished off them on my own before I’ve been forced to sit, but this one appears more stable. It has the option of attaching “wings” but I haven’t bought them yet.

Anchoring makes sense. When I first started visiting Malaysia I used to fish for Snakehead with a SOT. But it was challenging to spot fish (really a serious disadvantage) and they would take me on a tour of the lake when hooked, which is a real problem here because if they get any momentum up they snag you. I did land a few good ones however.

Where I think that the kayak would be perfect is for chasing surface-feeding Giant Gourami in flat calms. They are very difficult to approach in the boat and are often over 2-300 ft of water.

I was asked about the Hobie kayaks last week and whether they would be suitable. They look great but they are more than twice the price of my boat

Cheers, Paul

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Hi Gary,

Apologies but I am a bit unsure of what you mean by "Where it fails for me is when I twist toward the hand holding the rod to cast". If you are right handed, does that mean it fails when you twist your shoulders clockwise? I don't understand how that would impact your elbow movement but maybe I've got that wrong.

Thanks,

John

John,

Ditto.

I failed to understand what you meant about "clockwise",.. just another example of the many difficulties in trying to discuss things like fly casting through electronic media I suppose.

But I did go out and try to understand what my difficulty was, and you make a good point: turning does not actually make lifting the elbow much more difficult. I can still lift/drop and bring the shoulder muscles into play that way. What I cannot do is rotate my shoulders about the axis of my torso as much or at all, since I have already rotated to, or almost to, the max.

Without my feet, and limited lower body (hips) movement, I realize I was using my torso rotation for most input... especially for the pick up and back cast. Turning eliminates that, and makes the elbow lift and forearm/ wrist the only things left to use. That might be enough for picking up a fluff on a 5 wt off grass, but that ain't what I'm casting.

(BTW... do not try to lift an 8 wt head from the water with a popper with only the forearm and wrist! Trying to do so immediately explained how I damaged those tendons on top of the elbow.)

Paul,

When I'm kneeling I have both knees on the floor. I know some folks paddle from one knee but I have not been able to like that for some reason. I also use a small portable seat to rest my ass on when I am sculling along. I then "stand up" on my knees to cast.

And I seldom use the back cast delivery anymore. After years of practice I now just switch hands. Rotating the torso eliminates the ability to make the back cast with one hand, but maximizes the other.

[SevenWeight]

...BTW... has anyone seen the casting videos on Youtube from Red's Flyshop out in western US? I do not know the demonstrator's name (Joe maybe?), but he has the best demonstration of the cast for skipping flies from an underslung loop that I have seen. And, talking about an elbow drop, he not only drops to his waist, but sometimes continues to pull his elbow well behind his shoulder....

Yes, Joe Rotter of Red's Fly Shop. He has some excellent content on YouTube. I immediately jumped on this particular technique because I sometimes cast to mangroves, docks and other overhanging structure here in the Homosassa area. (Our mangroves are generally not as large as the ones in southern Florida but there are some situations where the fish are up underneath a good distance.) My execution of this cast is still a work-in-progress. I will say the soft delivery is very susceptible to the wind, more so than a high-velocity side-armed cast (which has its own shortcomings).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a16eGHS0kfM

[Paul Arden]

Yep it’s difficult to see what’s going on there. I’ve played with this for quite a long time, since I heard about it way back on a previous Board. I would love to see it in action on the water. My reservations about it is when I try it the fly generally doesn’t skip in but sticks or crashes Whereas if I come low and fast with a side loop, I find that the trajectory usually allows the fly to skip through easier. In fact if it doesn’t go, it’s a cast where I just crank up the power and force it in.

It might be because I’m more used to using a tail to collapse the leader. Are there times when the tail is a better approach to the problem?

Cheers, Paul

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Paul,

"Skipping" is a big deal in these parts, especially among the conventional tackle folks. We got lots of mangroves and docks in the saltwater areas, but it might be even more popular with the freshwater anglers.

The saltys tend to use the low trajectory power option on spinning reels, but the freshwater guys are special to watch as they can gently skip lures multiple times, even with revolving spool reels!

Their secret is to carefully choose lures that skip easily, like fat and flattened soft plastics. Taking a page from their book, I have tied some flies with reversed popper heads and those squiggly cut-out tails. Skipping them compared to normal flies is night and day. Otherwise you have to really overline the fly... like the guy in the Red's Youtube video seems to be doing.

Trying to skip a fat faced popper is tough, but I got to admit that keeping the rod tip real high is the trick, like the guy shows in the video. I was going about it all wrong.