The stop.

[Shemp]

This old man has fly fished a long time and has payed attention to all things casting. I’m able to practice on water and mostly throw a DT 5 or 6. Distance has never been of great importance, 60’ is plenty for my trout fun.
I recently spoke to a certified guy about tighter loops, forward and back. The conversation quickly arrived at ‘the stop’, naturally.
I understand everything about the importance of the stop but struggle to imitate that of my guru friend.
It seems to me that the end of a 9’ rod carrying an acceptable length of line introduces just enough wrist deflection to negate any amount of stop focus I apply. As a fishing cast, it is perfectly acceptable but retirement suggests I figure this out.
I’ve squeezed, snap Joan’d, changed grips, nada.
Results include line disturbance from hitting too hard.
I can achieve decent loops by stopping the rod very high but better casters don’t have to. Wimpy wrists?
Should the stop come more from the larger shoulder muscle?
What’s the how-to?

[Paul Arden]

Hi Shemp and welcome to the madhouse

That’s a really good question actually. Personally I prefer not to focus on the stop, and instead focus on the force application. While we often teach a “hard stop” I think it’s a bit misleading. It can solve a few problems but usually indirectly.

To tighten up the loops I would work on a short line and minimum power application drills through a narrow arc. https://www.sexyloops.com/flycast/casti ... -1st-gear/

Have you experimented with the V-grip?

Cheers, Paul

[whinging pom]

Shemp
You may find practicing over grass concentrates your mind on the process and the rod tip, I find water brings too many distractions for fruitful practice and learning unless I’ve an instructor next to me keeping me on message.

I’m in the learning process too, one casting instructor saw my struggles a year or so back with a 5 wt and accused me out of the blue…of watching Joan WuLff videos!!! . And I had to admit I’d been trying to develop power snap!
( wonderful lady though she is ) The power snap was possibly not the best wording for what I think she wanted to describe and was open to misunderstanding. I took it to extreme. Like with the other analogies of driving nails into plaster walls, flicking paint of a brush, etc. They really didn’t help me picture it. Maybe for shorter casters with no haul technique they help ?!!! … don’t know.

I’m sure you’ll get lots of good advice here that will help you imagine the feel and I won’t attempt to give you technical advice with the level of knowledge and teaching techniques available on this forum.

One thing I notice with the really good casters at distance ( I go and watch casting comps) like the good golfers is the lightness of their grip, and the lack of resultant tension in the forearm. One ( and I hope he doesn’t mind the description,) skinny slip of a young man Nick Moore casts very long with seemingly no effort and no grip. And he’s described his little squeeze at the end as something like the pressure needed to get a little pea size of toothpaste out of the tube. It’s that light!

Re loops My tightest loops come from powering down, working the tip of the rod and using the haul hand to control the loop it’s not putting an extra snap in.
Struggling ( for me) means muscling up, creating tension through the arm and shoulder over powering the rod and ends up with wider loops that go nowhere,if I’m fortunate , or chaotic spaghetti thrown towards a wall, and frustration, if I’m not.

Your rod stroke starts from still , then slow, then acceleration to fast and then , …you stop moving. Simple.
If I put a Snap on the end of that chain when fishing, it can help fire out abad cast and turn over the leader, but I believe you get a wobble that upsets the line and the smoothness, as well as distracting you from the real problem that’s stopping you getting those tight loops and good turn over. It’s a band aid! ( a sticking plaster).
My thumb on the back of the rod was becoming my worst enemy in achieving what I wanted.

I’m looking forward to the comments of others here about this. (Edit: I just noticed what Paul said about tighter loops, I couldn’t agree more). It’s a constant learning process and I’ve learnt so much from these guys ( and all too rare ladies). Hope you get your answers.
All best and good luck with it
Pom

[Morsie]

Can you control the acceleration leading up to "where" you stop, rather than "how" you stop. Play around with stop positions, use background reference points.

[Paul Arden]

I was casting on the roof last night and thinking about this. How about instead of “squeeze stop” make the squeeze directed to target. In other words it’s not a squeeze stop, it’s a squeeze direction.

Dunno. That may or may not help. If it does help there is a second part to it as well

Cheers, Paul

[askel]

Pom has described my very own experience. "I took it to extreme" is exactly what I did whenever I couldn't connect what I heard/read to what I supposed to do. Most definitions related to fly casting are so fuzzy that they probably make more confusion than intended.

[Paul Arden]

Damn I’ve forgotten what the second part was now. It might have been pull back is reversing a very small return away from target or stopless finishing pointing at target. Whatever it was it would have been good

Learning flycasting is not easy. Coaches can only really teach paths they have followed or helped others to follow their path. Quite a lot of what is out there I think is wrong, or at least misleading. It often solves a very specific problem but if that’s not your problem then it makes it worse. Best piece of advice I can give is to play with a very short length of line and lengthen from there. 10’ is too much. Trying to make adjustments with longer lengths of line to begin with just makes life extremely difficult.

Try forming loops with a very short lengths of line and keep backing off the power. Teaching good form and body movement is difficult in writing but there are many analogies that seem to work, from throwing a dart, chopping an onion or flicking a potato off the tip.

Anyway I think the backcast is generally very poorly taught indeed. Locked wrist, force applied from the forearm. This is not good. The forearm should be blocked allowing the wrist to flip (almost) freely. Nowadays I much prefer the term “blocking” to stopping.

But hey, “stopping” works for some people and for many it was apparently an epiphany moment.

Cheers, Paul

[Bernd Ziesche]

While we often teach a “hard stop” I think it’s a bit misleading.

Hi mate,
I thought you often were teaching a stop less stop.

Hello Shemp,
I recommend to focus on 2 key points for tighter loops:

1. Small arc. Try 10:30 to 13:30 instead of 10:00 to 14:00.
The best casters can achieve the desired (just enough) line speed within a relatively small arc. But this asks for increased force application within that smaller arc. Increasing force application makes it harder to remain smooth enough in your acceleration. Thus shorten your arc, but not that much, that you loose control over smoothness.

2. Position the rotation of your rod on the last part of your stroke (rod hand path during acceleration). Go like 10:30, 10:30, 10:30 now rotate to 13:30 (1:30).

The smaller your arc and the less percentage of your rod hand path you use for rotation, the tighter loops you get.

Don't overthink the stop!

Try this a few times with a short line and let us know, if it helped.
Regards
Bernd

P.s.: The recommended clock positions don't matter in detail. I just used them to express what I mean by reducing arc. The best size of arc is also dependent on other factors like the level of desired line speed. So don't take "10:30" too much into detail.