My fishing season has come to a halt as I head off to help my father diagnosed with cancer. While it is unlikely I will get out fishing in the near future, I thought I would share a story about casting with you. A short time ago I hired a guide for a day’s fishing. It wasn’t great weather and the fishing was dour and the guide in a bid to see that I got good value for money asked if I would be open to casting tuition during the day. I saw no reason why not as my casting is far from perfect and it would add a further dimension to the day. Firstly the guide suggested I use his rod which had a much faster action than I was used to, then he suggested that I change the grip that I use. I tend to have my index finger up the shaft of the rod and he recommended placing my thumb up the rod. He also suggested changing my stance from left foot forward to an open front on stance and to refrain from using my shoulder/arm by keeping my elbow tucked down at my side. As the weather worsened with a strengthening wind, my cast got worse with each hour. This really frustrated the guide to the point where he noted that if he cast as badly as I was he would give up fishing. Now, I haven’t named the guide or the occasion in this article as I liked them, they meant well and they didn’t really intend the comment quite like that but it really made me angry!
So I spent several days reading articles and watching YouTube videos to see what the issue was. I concluded after much reading that it wasn’t bad news at all and here is why. Now if you were a golfer or a tennis player then changing your driver/racket and grip alone would be enough to disrupt your game. Throw in some changes to your stance and swing and your entire game could fall apart and there are cases where this has happened to sporting professionals who have tinkered with their game in search of that little bit of extra performance. So heartened that I wasn’t a complete failure I did some more reading and discovered that the art of fly casting is indeed a very individual thing. In fact the Americans are quite scathing of the purist approach to fly casting adopted in the UK that the guide was advocating, noting that there is the UK way of fly casting and the way the rest of the world casts. Watching masters like Lefty Kreh on YouTube affirmed my casting style was just fine, left foot forward, using the whole body, right shoulder and arm was all fine. In fact as long as the rod tip travels in a straight line that the line loop was tight you could pretty much do whatever you like. If you think about it, bowlers in cricket come in all shapes and varieties and as long as the rules of the game are obeyed you can be a successful bowler with an unorthodox style, masters like Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan spring to mind.
So the moral of the story is: believe in your cast and if you are going to make changes then make one or two small ones preferably not while out for the day, be careful of what you ask for when accepting help from a guide and if it isn’t working and the process has sucked all of the joy out of the experience then tell them to back off and go back to casting in a manner that allows you to enjoy the day. What I did learn through the research phase is a lot about the physics of the casting techniques and I have included some links to the most useful YouTube videos below in the event you are looking to understand the process better and tinker with your cast. That said, most of my fish have been caught much closer to the bank than my desired casting distance, i.e. you don’t have to be able to cast ridiculously far to catch plenty of fish. I have since also bought a new rod that has a much slower casting action which suits my casting style even more and with my new found knowledge am casting better than ever …. so while not directly attributable to the guide one might say that they nudged me into do something about my cast.
Tight Lines
Greg