A wierd thing about casting distance

[Malcolm]

So you are on a highland loch wandering along the bank with your 8ft 6 5 weight with a team of flies and there are fish rising steadily and you can cover them all perfectly and gently up to about 80ft or so with just a single false cast to get the line out. Totally effortless. Then a good one "head and tails" 90ft out. It's just 10 feet but all of a sudden that effortless cast changes. You look behind making sure that there is no rise in the bank, the single false cast becomes four false casts, the team of flies in their nice wide loop tightens up and every second cast is a balls-up for one reason or another. And this is weird. It doesn't much matter whether you are using a 7.5ft 4 weight or a 10ft 7 weight. There might be 5ft or so less with the 7.5ft 4 weight and 5 ft more with the 10 ft 7 weight.

But the same thing happens. Add 10ft to the effortless cast and it's not just a cast with a bit of effort: it's a whole new ball game.

Add 15ft and you have to take off a fly or two and make sure there is nothing behind you.

Add just 30 ft and you have to take off the fly altogether, put on a piece of wool, put on a longbelly line and you'll do quite well in many a casting competition!

Diminishing returns!
Malcolm

[Traditionalist]

Best to take the wool off as well!

TL
MC

[Fishtales]

To me it has more to do with adrenalin rush If I ignore the fact that it is a big fish, relax, and cast as normal I don't have a great deal of bother, rush at it and the cast is in chaos.  I also find that excessive casting causes the same problems which I put down to tiredness, leading to loss of concentration, or muscle tiredness causing the muscles to tighten and a loss of fluidity in the cast. Sitting down for a while helps.

[Inchlaggan]

In order to cover up my inept casting I justify my actions by pointing out that a single rise of a "good one" merely shows you where it was, not where it will be when you next cast.
Only consistently repeated rises are worthy of your attention. If these are beyond the reach of acceptable presentation there is little point in making the effort. If I do make the distance (usually after losing a few flees to the heather/trees, much cursing, using a casting action that starts around the knees, wading to the danger point and so on) presentation is pish. Nae fish. As Sandy has it, the sight of a whumper sends a dose of adrenalin to the brain, flushing out logic, sense and learning. Sit down, watch and think, the fish is still there.
Or buy a boat.

[Wildfisher]

In order to cover up my inept casting I justify my actions by pointing out that a single rise of a "good one" merely shows you where it was, not where it will be when you next cast.

Exactly. This I have also found to be the  biggest issue on lochs.

No matter how good your casting is you will probably be casting onto empty water unless you can first work out the rising pattern and this is next to impossible with occasional risers.

In order of importance this is no different from  any other situation: Observation first - casting second. Luck also plays a far greater role than most anglers will allow their egos to admit. :lol:

[haresear]

Exactly. This I have also found to be the  biggest issue on lochs.

No matter how good your casting is you will probably be casting onto empty water unless you can first work out the rising pattern and this is next to impossible with occasional risers.

In order of importance this is no different from  any other situation: Observation first - casting second. Luck also plays a far greater role than most anglers will allow their egos to admit. :lol:

I would go along with all of that.

Alex

[Fishtales]

I think experience plays a lot too. I tend to fish areas I 'know' should have fish. It may look like casting blind but the way I look at it there should be fish in the same areas from loch to loch. It is hard to quantify what I see I just 'know'. It is the same with rises, I will cover the area that the rise occurred in as well as around it, and I will keep casting into that area 'till I feel i am wasting my time and move on. This again I can't quantify as the time can be long or short, it is just a feeling. I will also cast back into an area even after moving as long as I can cover it which often results in a take or at least an offer. Again this isn't something I always do to every spot it is just when it 'feels' right Most fish in lochs have a patrol area, usually a circle or an ellipse in my experience, so casting into the area of a rising fish for long enough might result in the fish coming back and, seeing my fly, take it. This why I try not to rush into a long cast for a rising fish at distance. Rushing invariably results in a bad cast or it gets stuck in the heather behind me. The fish in the 'Casting in the Sun' video I put up is a case in point. The fish you see me playing and landing is the same one I miss earlier in the video, or at least it was in the same place. I walked up to where it was and fished into the general area where I thought it was and it took my fly. An awkward cast as the bank behind me was steep so every cast couldn't be rushed.

[Wildfisher]

Malcolm how many people do you know who cast 80ft with a team of flies

Malcolm can, he is a good, sold fishing caster and to my mind fishing is what casting really should be about. Sport-distance  casting is something else altogether. I'm pretty sure Alex would manage it too with little effort.

[Wildfisher]

I wonder if they practice

All the time Craig.

Sad bastards both of them   :lol:

[Malcolm]

The 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. Ok I could stick a piece of wool on the end and get 15 feet more with the heavy rod compared to the light rod but it's much less than that in real life.