Overhang - Effect on rod tip & cast

[Lou Bruno]

Greetings

Do we know the effects of overhang on our cast and rod tip?
When I practice can have a limited amount of overhang during the entire casting stroke? I know I can't on my initial line pick up.
What determines our limits...loop & line collapse, line begins to fall, lack of energy.

Also, if a "limited" length is optimum what determines that.. casting skills, rod Swing weight, our line geometry?

I watched an older video on Spey casting where the caster said that a limited about of over hang acts as a pendulum during the cast to propel the lily line. Which aids in creating line tension.

This promoted me to seek the input from the SL casters.

Lou

[Lasse Karlsson]

Overhang, the amount of runningline outside the rodtip. The amount you can have depends on skill , and to a far lesser extend the flyline. Little difference in thickness between head and runningline, and larger overhang is possible, other way around and less is possible.
Too much and the initial loop is formed in runningline and that can make for a very unstable loop.

It does not act as a pendulum to propel the flyline, what propel the flyline is the caster. But the spey world have some very peculiar ideas at times. The right amount of overhang for a given cast can help in creating a smaller initial loop.

Cheers
Lasse

[Lou Bruno]

Lasse

I think I see running line. From your video it appears to be two of the background windows wide. As you change you casting arc your loops get wider, but I don't see any problem otherwise due to the running line.

Lou

[Paul Arden]

Hi Lou,

I’m not sure about pendulum or adding tension. I’ve never heard that before. The question I would ask then, is if you increase overhang do you increase tension? I would think that the opposite would be the case. I would imagine that the analogy has come from beach casting and the pendulum/ layback cast.

What determines the limits of overhang? First would be caster skill. Second as Lasse says the difference in thickness between head and running line. Rear taper may also make a difference.

Overhang achieves a number of things (let’s compare to the same length of line but we are still in the head, so a longer head or a DT). Firstly it allows for a faster haul - there is less friction through the guides. Second I think the rod tip recovers quicker from MCF1 to RSP2 - how significant is that? Not very much IMO. Thirdly, what is significant, is that a loop cast with overhang will morph differently, and the loops will tighten quicker.

There are disadvantages too of course. Presentation casts are limited and less effective.

Interesting question. Thanks, I’ll have a think about the pendulum some more.

Cheers, Paul

[Lasse Karlsson]

Lasse

I think I see running line. From your video it appears to be two of the background windows wide. As you change you casting arc your loops get wider, but I don't see any problem otherwise due to the running line.

Lou

Hi Lou

Notice how as I lengthen the overhang initially, there comes a point where I start making the loop in thin runningline, and as I do, the flyline starts having slack in it and the loop front starts to crumble. At the point of failure for the line to unroll, I open up my casting arc to accommodate the increased amount of overhang, and takes out the slack. As I continue to increase overhang, even the very large casting arc cannot make up for slack introduced and the cast starts to fall appart again.

Cheers
Lasse

[Paul Arden]

So one could argue that the challenge is not overhang between the rod tip and the head but instead running line in the fly leg of the loop.

I’m still not sure what to do with the information contained in the second part of that video Maybe that you can save a Stopless carry gone awry by using massive pull-back?!

Cheers, Paul

[Lou Bruno]

Lasse

Appreciate the clarification on your video; i need to give that a go.
Wouldn't a DT fly line be a wise choice to eliminate overhang?
Also if excessive overhang buggers-up our cast why introduce it; there's times when we do... distance casts come to mind. As long as we can control our cast that has overhang we might be able to use overhang to our advantage, it seems. It begs the question, wouldn't a more suitable line choice be wise to match our casts. For instance, a line with a heavier head weight... wouldn't the extra line weight help to put tension on our line.

Wide loops are better if we have overhang!

Lou