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A wierd thing about casting distance

Started by Malcolm, April 11, 2012, 12:18:33 AM

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haresear

QuoteThe post isn't actually about distance; it's about this ceiling in easy casting and how it hardly changes across line weights. I said 80ft but the exact distance doesn't matter. It just struck me as very strange when i was out yesterday salmon fishing with a 10ft 8 weight and realised the the comfortable casting distance hardly varied from my 7.5ft 3/4 weight.

I agree too.

It's not just the comfortable  casting distance that doesn't vary much, the maximum distance achieved doesn't vary much either, even in artificial non-fishing situations like casting competitions. Take a look at the top distance cast with a #5 line versus a #9 line on this site.
http://www.thebfcc.co.uk/category/results
With occasional exceptions, most people who took part only managed to cast the heavier outfit about a rod length further than they cast the lighter outfit.

Alex
Protect the edge.

islaangler

I think the "comfortable distance" is a state of mind.  I cast to that distance without thinking, my timing and power delivery is easy and relaxed. To cast that extra bit further causes me to think about it, this mucks up my timing, I put more effort into it and it all goes to rats  :(  The more practice I put in, the further the "comfortable distance" gets until air resistance, dodgy technique,  and my bad back set the limit. A good balanced outfit will cast to about the same distance irrespective of the AFTM weight . IN MY HUMBLE OPINION

Fishtales

My usual cast is sixty to sixty five feet, how do I know? I know my three fly cast is ten feet. The tapered leader is five feet and I can get the belly of the WF line out which should be thirty feet. I shoot line, so another fifteen to twenty feet.

10+5+30+15/20=60/65'

What the flies are doing at that distance I very seldom care about. I can see them land in a straight line some of the time, to the left or right on others and back on themselves into a breeze. As long as they aren't tangled up I don't really care they are in the water and I can start fishing. If I really have to I can probably get another ten feet on a good day or more with a following wind, not into a head wind though.

It never matters to me whether they land in a heap or not, bad cast or good, they all get fished back to the shoreline. If the cast looks really bad I will check to see if the flies are tangled, sometimes they are others they're not. I try not to false cast too much no matter what length I want out just giving the rod a bit more "omph!" on the forward cast to speed the line up or I double haul the running line, or both, I also aim that bit higher above the surface.

I suppose it depends a lot on your expectations. I don't expect every cast to be a good one but I expect every cast to catch a fish :)
Don't worry, be happy.
Sandy
Carried it in full, then carry it out empty.
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Malcolm

You normally cast a quite a bit more than 60-65 feet for your normal cast Sandy - more like 70-80 feet.  You are forgetting the length of your rod (10ft) and the length of the head is more than 30 feet on most WF lines. When you were reaching for that trout rising at the edge of the ripple on the second last loch we fished  it was pretty impressive stuff for a 3 fly cast certainly further than I would have attempted!

Arthur Cove used to fish up to about 90 feet with his nymphs on a 20ft leader with his DT5 but he was a very good caster and cast that sort of distance very easily but he stands out as being a bit exceptional and maybe the best practical (as compared to platform) distance caster I've seen with a team of flies but he wasn't all that pretty to watch. The point remains that the gap between the very best and people who have reached a decent level - like a lot of people on this forum - is comparatively small.
There's nocht sae sober as a man blin drunk.
I maun hae goat an unco bellyfu'
To jaw like this

Traditionalist

Quote from: Malcolm on April 12, 2012, 04:33:34 PM
You normally cast a quite a bit more than 60-65 feet for your normal cast Sandy - more like 70-80 feet.  You are forgetting the length of your rod (10ft) and the length of the head is more than 30 feet on most WF lines. When you were reaching for that trout rising at the edge of the ripple on the second last loch we fished  it was pretty impressive stuff for a 3 fly cast certainly further than I would have attempted!

Arthur Cove used to fish up to about 90 feet with his nymphs on a 20ft leader with his DT5 but he was a very good caster and cast that sort of distance very easily but he stands out as being a bit exceptional and maybe the best practical (as compared to platform) distance caster I've seen with a team of flies but he wasn't all that pretty to watch. The point remains that the gap between the very best and people who have reached a decent level - like a lot of people on this forum - is comparatively small.

Mr.Cove used an #8 weight with a #4 or #5 line.  It was not pretty, but he managed to belt them out. This is too extreme for most. Severe underlining does work for some things, but it takes a lot of practice to use it.

TL
MC

Traditionalist

Just in case anybody is wondering about that, there are only two ways to obtain distance.  One is to shoot a lot of line, and the other is to aerialise a lot of line.  Aerialising long light lines is considerably more difficult than aerialising short heavy ones, but it does have the advantage of delicate presentation, even at distance, assuming you can do it! :)

TL
MC

scotty9

Quote from: haresear on April 11, 2012, 01:55:11 PM
I would go along with all of that.

Alex

Me too  :)

I know it was said distance wasn't the absolute importance here but an 80' cast to fish with standing on a bank - that's one fecking hard cast. I can comfortably cast past that with a #5 line with little effort in a field, not in a fishing situation with obstacles everywhere though. Well I can but lord knows where the fly is going to end up and what the leader is going to do, it might turn over straight but it won't do it everytime. On a loch with space behind me I'd say my upper limit assuming the wind isn't straight in my face is around 60-70' with a #5 line and single dry. If you put out a tape you soon realise just how far away that actually is.

The problem is no-one and I mean no one carrying a decent amount of line can keep it high enough off the ground to deliver a long cast to fish with. For distance without using some form of shooting head you need to be able to drop the backcast, you need to alter the trajectory, to be quite frank I don't know of many places you go fishing where you can do that.

The reason it becomes harder and harder to go further is you need more speed in the line to counter gravity's effects and you can't indefinitely create more speed, you have finite energy you can impart to the rod and that's assuming you can get the most out of that energy. If you want to cast far in a fishing situation use a shooting head or a #9 weight, I can put a #9 a lot further than I can a #5... In fact, buy a float tube.


Traditionalist

it's not speed that keeps a line in the air. It's tension.

TL
MC

scotty9

A fully taught line from rod tip to loop may still land before it turns over.

For the record I agree tension is very important but it's not the only thing that will get you the distance.

scotty9

Also just realised I've read the distance in relation to targetting a rising fish and thought dry fly. You want the fly landing with a straight leader for that, I hate any movement to the leader or line when I'm hoping for a rise to the fly. If you're going to be pulling flies it doesn't matter how they land like Sandy says. That's quite a big difference maker in casting distance terms IMO.

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