Glasgow Casting Club

[haresear]

Hopefully all the GCC guys will have got an email from me now, but just in case, here is the gist of it...

"Looks like this is postponed due to lack of members able to attend.

Can I use this opportunity to Just a few suggestions/guidelines from other members that I think are worthy of consideration?

Safety first:

The troot fishers among us have a need for long backcasts, especially now that we are improving as casters!
How about we agree to confine our skills to the field across he road from the pond?
I have seen many close calls with passers by, not to mention the traffic with fly lines firing out across two lanes. Let's just agree to head up the field unless roll casting.
The double handers among us are obviously primarily rolll/spey casting and need a fair bit of room.  If the single handed casters bugger off across the road, this should help the salmon men out and allow them in turn to accommodate passers-by, by casting along, ( parallel) to the bank.
The point is to minimise the risk of endangering the public with the attendant problems this could cause us. One complaint and we could be ordered off! Let's please  be squeaky clean on this.

Discarded mono:

Now let me firstly say I 've never seen any evidence of this and I am 100% certain that all our waste mono is taken away.

One of the cooncil workers pointed out to a member that a swan had been found to be trailing some line. Our man in Havana pointed out that that the swan had most likely flown in from elsewhere where bait was used and and that by the nature of the club, discarded line was extremely unlikely. This seemed to be accepted by the man from the cooncil, but is worth remembering.

Other Issues:

As always, different people have different views on what the club is about and what it should be aiming at.
My own view is that the club should avoid assessing or awarding  perceived competence. I like the informality of the whole set-up and feel it is less intimidating to beginners that way.

On the competence/award thing. If distance casting is your bag, you can measure your cast yourself.  If you want to cast around obstacles or through hoops, well you don't need anyone else to tell if you did so successfully or not. The fish generally let you know how good you are.

When I'm at Knightswood,  I always have a 30m tape, cones and hoops, so just ask if you want to use them.

Alex"

Sorry for monopolising the forum on this, but a good 50% of the GCC are members on here, so it is a logical place to publicise things.

Alex

[Teither]

maybe a suggestion, or maybe a distraction, but Scott and i did some practice in Kelvingrove park, on the river, fast flowing and real, drew a bit of a crowd on the bridge then a civilised lunch in the art galleries, not an option for a bigger group but the advantages of a real context ramps up the learning curve, for those interested in mastering the perfect drift somewhere could be found.

Alan,
          I'm sure you're right. I have a couple of ideas for likely spots, which would, I'm sure, accommodate those wishing to practise in a real river environment. If you're at the pond tomorrow I'll outline what I have in mind.

T

[scotty9]

I hit some guy's boat with a 10 weight too  :lol: Definitely a bit of a nightmare with people around no matter how careful you are, you can't look behind you all the time.

The river stuff was really good, after faffing around with speys we spent most of the time trying to present under overhanging trees on the far bank with no room behind us and get the perfect drift, so difficult but what a great learning tool! The lunch was certainly not bad either  :

[scotty9]

I read a thing by Stu Tripney over here which was pretty cool and something I'm going to work on once my exams are finished. He talks about practising casting from behind bushes, lying down on your belly, crouched down, facing the wrong way etc. The things you have to do when you're trying to stay out of sight of the fish! That's going to be my next line of practice....albeit I haven't practised in all the time I've been away!

[Malcolm]

i think it would benefit double hander casters also, anything to escape the un-focussed repetative casting that results from not having a particular thing to achieve and immediate one to one feedback,

It's only unfocused to the untrained eye Alan.

Top quality spey casting depends on incredibly sharp timing, fine loop control and precise placement of the "anchor" that the normal overhead casting single handed caster just can't appreciate. I am just a newcomer to the art but watching people like Gary Scott and Andrew Toft is a lesson in humility!

Everything in casting moves on from a baseline that is extremely well ingrained. In spey-casting the crafts outlined above are the baseline.

Simple perhaps but these basic skills require a high level of application. Just watching the great and good gives a false sense of the application required to get there.

As a competent single handed caster who has stepped out of his comfort zone into attempting a new art may I gently suggest that you try first before passing judgment?

[scotty9]

Sharp timing, fine loop control and precise placement of the anchor are needed in the single handed equivalent also, the basic workings of the cast are the same regardless of rod used. If you don't have the above elements with either rod, its simply not going to work as well as it could. I know overhead casting single handed caster was mentioned and I agree with that. But most who may be reading this i'm sure know exactly that spey casting isn't just some easy add on.

I agree with Alan as I believe what his post is outlining is the need of a goal, he's not talking about simple repeating of tasks but rather just casting and casting without analysing what the goal was, what the outcome was and what needs changed. If you have that kind of analysis then repeat casting is a useful tool. He's not saying that all repetitive casting is bad.

And just as an aside, Andrew taught me more about spey casting one morning on grass than anyone/anything has taught me. We had specific goals we were trying to achieve and it worked a treat! One thing I do think though - river practice is so much better for speys. Anchor placement on still water just isn't the same as running water, having practiced at the club and practiced on the river with a few of the FFF guys - the river rules supreme.

[Teither]

Scott,
         I wasn't going to enter yet again into this issue with Alan's view of what the double-handers are doing at the pond but I'll see if I can get you to see the picture.
         As Malcolm says, we are trying to ingrain the fundamental movements. We do have our goal and it's to get these fundamentals right. It is not just a case of blind repetition. We do try to analyse what is happening in each cast. We discuss peformance with each other in efforts to analyse what is happening. And we do consciously work at getting things right because without getting the fundamental controls right nothing else will work right. Believe it or not we know that, just as we do also know that simply repeating the same mistakes will not only not advance our skill level but will indeed consolidate whatever bad habits are in there.
         We just get a bit p'd off at conceited assumptions that we don't know these things. We don't need to learn about drag free drifts, casting round big stones etc etc etc. We just want to be able to put the damn fly where it will begin working immediately after landing, with as much gracefulness of style and economy of effort as possible, in whatever current of river we are fishing. And it ain't easy.
       And, incidentally, it's a lot easier to get practising on running water if you're not on a salmon beat.
       And, as a final incidentally, we had Mr Toft over this morning, giving another marvellous demo focussing on, you've guessed it - lift, anchor placement and use of the hands and body in these as well as in the final delivery. He never once got in the water ! 

Teither

[scotty9]

Jim - Sorry, my apologies. I did not want that post to be picked up as being targetted at anyone or 'us vs them' once again. I was just trying to point out what I took from Alan's post. I agree exactly with what you are saying, the analysis is the critical part, I didn't mean to suggest that the guys at the club aren't doing this.

I also totally agree with the principles, I was just pointing out they are the same regardless of rod used.

I should add i love playing with double handed casting, might need to see if i can get my rod brought out!

[Teither]

Scotty,
          No apology is due from you, Scott. I wasn't having a go, just trying to see whether you would understand the points that our good friend seems unwilling to take on board. I trust all is going well for you in NZ.
Jim A

[Wildfisher]

Are some underlying tensions  starting to emerge here chaps? Sure seems like it from the outside looking in. It would be a pity, you have something pretty special and unique there that has by all accounts produced some spectacular results.  Nothing like it at all in this neck of woods.  :?