Raising my hand
Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2023 1:37 pm
Since I don’t see any competitions in my future, I seldom attempt to hook one up to masturbate my ego. Instead, when I do play with distance I just cast toward my 100’ tree, and I concentrate on just casting easy. Once upon a time I struggled to reach the tree, these days I consider it a failure to not get past it. I commonly land in that 110 zone, and if I fall short of the tree I stop and analyze what caused the failure.
BTW… my “technique” is somewhere along the lines of OSD. Definitely not stopless. And casting “easy” is a necessary form of self preservation these days.
My playtime has changed somewhat lately. The park outside my backyard fence is privately owned and maintained. With the extremely wet summer we have had so far, that maintenance has fallen way behind. That usually beautiful green casting field is now full of happy uncontrolled weeds, many of which reach their seed clumps around half a meter into the air.
The weeds have altered my usual play. PAULD practice is almost impossible since the weeds almost always snag and make the pickup far from smooth. The larger problem has been with a new form of ticking on the presentation stroke. Maybe I should call it (seed) picking?
Since I commonly fish while standing on a paddle craft, which is essentially like standing on the surface of the water. My casting was quite tuned to just avoid ticking. This elevation of the “ground” was quite frustrating.
Putting more effort into the back cast, to straighten out some sag really didn’t help much. If I powered more into the BC, the leader end would tuck and now I’m ticking for a different reason. It actually made things worse.
So, I began to work on my BC trajectory, aiming it higher than usual, and that yielded better results. To do that, I worked on my hand path during the BC, and instead of stopping the hand somewhere between my shoulder and ear, I raised my elbow some more and stopped my hand higher. I actually began to play with this and found I could raise my hand to even higher than my head.
I’m not sure if this high hand technique will ever be necessary? Maybe if I go wading in deeper water?
But, here is the very surprising result of this play. I began to try to maintain that high hand throughout the presentation stroke. And guess what happened? I began to easily and repeatedly put the fly into the 115 and better zone!
Why would this happen? Surely, I am at a physical disadvantage. If I ever want to increase my input into a cast (like say casting into a stout wind) I usually shorten everything up and make my hand height lower and more abrupt than usual. This high hand actually feels awkward - but it works.
BTW… in my youth I stood 6’2” standing as erect as possible for stats on the basketball team. I’m sure I have shrunk with age, but I guess you would still consider me somewhat tall.
Is the extra distance simply a factor of launching from a higher point? It sure does not seem to be an advantage physically.
BTW… my “technique” is somewhere along the lines of OSD. Definitely not stopless. And casting “easy” is a necessary form of self preservation these days.
My playtime has changed somewhat lately. The park outside my backyard fence is privately owned and maintained. With the extremely wet summer we have had so far, that maintenance has fallen way behind. That usually beautiful green casting field is now full of happy uncontrolled weeds, many of which reach their seed clumps around half a meter into the air.
The weeds have altered my usual play. PAULD practice is almost impossible since the weeds almost always snag and make the pickup far from smooth. The larger problem has been with a new form of ticking on the presentation stroke. Maybe I should call it (seed) picking?
Since I commonly fish while standing on a paddle craft, which is essentially like standing on the surface of the water. My casting was quite tuned to just avoid ticking. This elevation of the “ground” was quite frustrating.
Putting more effort into the back cast, to straighten out some sag really didn’t help much. If I powered more into the BC, the leader end would tuck and now I’m ticking for a different reason. It actually made things worse.
So, I began to work on my BC trajectory, aiming it higher than usual, and that yielded better results. To do that, I worked on my hand path during the BC, and instead of stopping the hand somewhere between my shoulder and ear, I raised my elbow some more and stopped my hand higher. I actually began to play with this and found I could raise my hand to even higher than my head.
I’m not sure if this high hand technique will ever be necessary? Maybe if I go wading in deeper water?
But, here is the very surprising result of this play. I began to try to maintain that high hand throughout the presentation stroke. And guess what happened? I began to easily and repeatedly put the fly into the 115 and better zone!
Why would this happen? Surely, I am at a physical disadvantage. If I ever want to increase my input into a cast (like say casting into a stout wind) I usually shorten everything up and make my hand height lower and more abrupt than usual. This high hand actually feels awkward - but it works.
BTW… in my youth I stood 6’2” standing as erect as possible for stats on the basketball team. I’m sure I have shrunk with age, but I guess you would still consider me somewhat tall.
Is the extra distance simply a factor of launching from a higher point? It sure does not seem to be an advantage physically.