Raising my hand

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

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.

[Paul Arden]

Is the extra distance simply a factor of launching from a higher point? It sure does not seem to be an advantage physically.

I don’t know because I haven’t found that to be the case!!

I find that a higher trajectory forward cast, which necessitates a lower trajectory backcast, gives me more distance. But there is not a huge amount of difference.

Cheers, Paul

[Lasse Karlsson]

Would love some video

A thought springs to mind though, when I have no obstructions and are just playing about, I tend to have a lazy backcast, it gets to drop more than nesseccary because I can. But that also means my distance goes down as I have to much "slack" in my BC that needs to be ironed out before I get going in the other direction. Maybe your new extra distance more come from a better backcast, than a slightly raised arm?

Cheers
Lasse

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Lasse,

Yep... I suspect you are right... it probably was more about concentrating on my back cast than it was about hand height.

I was going to experiment more this evening, but of course, they mowed the grass and now ticking is not an issue. And, to make it worse, this evening I was treated to a nice 5 mph seabreeze perfectly aligned behind. So, no apples to apples comparison this night.

The other parameters were similar: sea level / 90 degree F / 90% humidity... but y'all know how much just a little following wind adds! It was dead calm the last time.

But, I did learn some things.

Thanks to Paul and Bruce, (and a lot of spare time while dealing with a head cold) I got out the digital caliper and dove balls deep in flyline and mono leader diameters. And, no surprise, Bruce's formulas appear to be an improvement over my previous attempts. I could not do much of a proof test due to the weeds, but things look good.

And, thanks to Paul and Nick's latest video, while I had the caliper out, I decided to check the MED. It's in pretty bad shape anyway, so I was not too bothered to use a black marker and darken the first foot of the running line.

What I learned tonight is I'm not carrying enough. The best I could do was pick up with the mark in my line hand. If I shoot a little during false casting, maybe 10 feet(?), I'm only getting the running line near the tip. And when I haul I'm pulling the head back into the rod guides.

But, thats about the best I can do. This is using my bastardized version of OSD. Trying 170 just doesn't work for me... yet... but it might not be in the cards. If I tuck my wrist I can get much more energy into the back cast (and a lot less pain in the wrist) but that extra force comes from body lean and shoulder rotation. The much stronger back cast now has no loop shape... it kinda looks like a flying "W".

I suspect that the 170 forearm extension requires more triceps muscle than I now have. Up until COVID I was somewhat of a gym rat, and I actually had triceps back then. Now, 4 years later, what I have could best be described as the "old man wobblies".

Anyway... kudos to y'all... Lasse, Paul, Bruce and Nick! Without your feedback I'd still be stuck in a rut.

[Paul Arden]

Hi Gary,

Ok I might be able to help here. If anything there is less effort in the 170.

This is how I see OSD backcast. We look to target, start to: shift weight, turn torso, lift shoulder, small closure of the elbow… we then in turn, stop weightshift, stop torso rotation, stop forearm and allow the wrist to flip. (Shoulder can still be raising the elbow /Drift).

The effort is stopping (blocking or braking) different parts in sequence. The momentum generated from the ground up ultimately is allowed to flip the wrist and therefore the rod over. If the forearm is getting tired then we are not doing this, and that’s what most people do (but from our discussions Gary I think you are flipping or “flailing” the wrist).

The effort is stopping movement in sequence, which is much easier than trying to force the rod over, and when we do allow the rod to turn over, the speed is higher. So then it’s just about fine tuning the timing, position etc.

The 170 is different. But again it is not forced. Here we do the same stuff; weight shift, torso, but instead of flipping the wrist, we move our elbow back and the forearm over to 90 degrees. As we sequentially stop the backcast movements, the momentum travels up the body and is used to flip the forearm straight. Once again it’s a “flail”. It shouldn’t feel forced.

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You want to get into a similar position as this (although you don’t have to pull the stupid face) before applying force. Upper arms aligned straight with shoulders, angled up or down to rear target, rod arm elbow at 90 degrees and vertical, hauling arm elbow at 90 degrees and horizontal.

Nick and I will do 170 next with drills etc. I teach this backcast in reverse. Starting with rod pointed at back target, making pickup and Laydowns straight back to target, using just the forearm, finishing with rod tip down. That allows us to imprint the position.

One primary difference between OSD and 170 is with OSD we are flailing the wrist, with 170 we are flailing the forearm. The other is that we finish with rod pointing at target.

Cheers, Paul

[Bernd Ziesche]

I find that a higher trajectory forward cast, which necessitates a lower trajectory backcast, gives me more distance. But there is not a huge amount of difference.

Hi Paul,
This almost made me ask you how low of a bc trajectory you teach for casting distance, but I dont even know what line Gary was using. Gary?
Cheers
B

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Bernd,

This play was with the HT 6 and the line is a MED 6.

I find it to be a *very* easy to cast combination.

Gary

[Paul Arden]

This almost made me ask you how low of a bc trajectory you teach for casting distance,

No wind or tail wind as low as possible. My back target is generally the horizon. Headwind the back target has to be elevated.

[Bernd Ziesche]

Thanks Gary. Thats a looong head though.
Paul,
With such a long head into a tail wind (you think) your trajectory goes downwards? So you think in terms of 180 = fc above horizontal and bc below?
Did you ever check trajectories for both casts in the WC (MED)?
Let me add this: Trajectory is set at loop formation, not the unrolled line!
Cheers
Bernd

[Paul Arden]

The trajectory of the loop is partly down to tip path and partly how the line is configured in the air at loop straight. The adjustment we make is where we aim.

It’s extremely rare to see a backcast trajectory below the horizontal with a long line, and is either flat or slightly elevated. But the target we aim for is below that and at Loop Straight the line will be angled down too.

Cheers, Paul