Casting practice with heavy lines

[Michal Duzynski]

Hi
Just wondering if guys practice casting with your heavy, fishing lines?
Fishing- that is important.
We know when we practice for instructor test we practice with floating 5, 6 Max 7wt line.
When we feel like shaping some loops in the park, we (me) take a 5wt set-up and it looks nice and pleasant.
...but what about your 8-10wt pike set up, or seatrout shooting set up with inter, or sinking heads?
Do you ever take it out and practice? , or are this set ups designed to use minimum false cast and get the fly
( many cases big fly) out there?
Casting mechanics are the same, and if something goes wrong you know what to fix from your light practice- I think.
Why I ask...my practice today with 33' inter head looked like shit- it still flew all the way, and was nice with short targets, but easy, relaxed false casts looked bad.
If you do practice- do you do anything particular?
Cheers
Mike

[Paul Arden]

Yes I do. I quite often teach with a hookless weighted fly (Clouser with hook cut off). However I’m careful about doing this because when making adjustments it’s not uncommon to push things too far and/or make mistakes – and a collision could mean the end of the rod.

For something like the Snakehead shot it only works properly with a fly (preferably Popper) attached. Good “practise” here is to run the banks throwing in poppers.

Cheers, Paul

[Thomas]

I sometimes practice with hookless pikeflies. Fishing for pike is tiring if your bigfly-casting sucks..

Cheers, Thomas

[Michal Duzynski]

Cheers
Maybe I'll put bigger fluff, or hook less fly. With small fluff I had to drift too much.

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Michael,

I actually feel that casting fluff is, in some ways, detrimental to fishing. Sure, it is fun and a great way to work on different aspects of casting, but it is far removed from presenting flies on the equipment I use when fishing. I seldom fish with less than a 8, and my flies vary, but none are close to fluff.

So... I would not say I "practice" casting with my fishing combos, but I definitely take each one out and evaluate them. That way I can tweak the leaders to the rod /line / fly combo I expect to use. Some times it might take an hour of casting and leader adjusting to get the type of presentation I am looking for, so maybe that is practicing, but when I'm happy with it I am on to the next one.

I use similar old beat up flies with the hook bend trimmed. And usually I store the practice fly and leader for future reference. I them tie a new one with the same proportions and wind it on the reel for the upcoming trip.

[Paul Arden]

Second WC in Norway and I had actually practised my accuracy having been inspired watching Steve throw 78/80 the previous competition with laser-like loops. Day before the event I had a practise cast. Tick, tick, tick, tick. I could not hover the fly without ticking. Why? Because I had been practising with fluff and not a competition fly. Lesson learned!!

[Phil Blackmar]

Paul-

I love the feel of late rotation. Right now I'm even working on getting my elbow out ahead of my hand with the forearm laid back for the feel of even more delayed rotation However, if I want a really really tight loop, under 90 or 100 feet, I do best with early rotation. Steve likes early rotation. What do you do?

Phil

[Lasse Karlsson]

Steve likes early rotation.

Phil

But he doesn't rotate early!

Late rotation for me for shorter casts too, and less rotation overall, longer translation if needed. If the outcome should be a tight loop from the beginning.

Cheers
Lasse

[Paul Arden]

Hi Phil,

If you want a tight loop you still rotate “late”. This is important because Drag straightens the tip path at the beginning of the stroke.

Ways to tighten the rod leg of the Loop, if that’s what you want;
- less Rod hand force with a faster haul (gives less counterflex)
- pullback, into upward drift (lifting the rod tip to close the loop)

The above is assuming that you already have a straight fly leg. To tighten the fly leg then it’s about Drag and applying force through an appropriate angle change to get a straighter tip path from RSP0-RSP1.

I understand what Steve means, but I disagree with his interpretation of “delayed rotation”. Steve is talking about “no rotation” until the end. What Steve does, like everyone else in the 5WT game, I would call delayed rotation. It’s the difference between a windmill cast which always throws a wide loop and feeding the force in gradually. Most intermediate casters don’t do this and so “delaying rotation” works for them. If someone was casting as Steve suggests, which does sometimes happen, then the answer is “less delayed rotation”

19 times out of 20 it’s too much force too soon. Maybe even 99 times out a 100. Asking someone to delay rotation gets the job done in their case.

Force application isn’t very well explained. How do you explain a feeling?

Cheers, Paul

[Lasse Karlsson]

Force application isn’t very well explained. How do you explain a feeling?

Cheers, Paul

One could try to describe it?
Explain what it is one should feel for, and how that feels?

It really only is as difficult as one wants to make it...

Cheers
Lasse