Glasgow Casting Club

[haresear]

The pond was a sheet of ice today, so I foolishly suggested we might be as well to head up to the rugby/ice hockey pitch to avoid the chance of hooking a gritter on the backcast.

As it turned out, we had to take it in turns to be on ice watch and free each others the leaders and trapped yarn from the icy clutches of the pitch. Maybe the ice pond would have been better.

I discovered that a #6 Orvis Helios tip-flex is not for me. A bit of a bummer really, seeing as how I?ve just bought it. Still, I should recoup my money.

The other big discovery of the day was that bringing out a measuring tape can firstly, screw up peoples' heads and result in poor casting. It can however also result in a determination to improve, with a resultant improvement in technique and subsequently in distance achieved.

Now Scotty, Alan and I can quite comfortably (in good conditions) cast a full 90? line and a bit. Add on the leader and that sounds like 100? plus. Wrong

When the tape measure is laid out, collective muscles are flexed and technique goes out the window. The back cast is all over the place (you really see this from a head-on view) and we try to keep more line in the air than we should. We all know the theory, but we ignore it until the tapemeister tells us we are scheidt.

Scotty and I managed to get casts over 90? eventually. Modesty forbids me disclosing who got the longest of the day at 96?, but on each of these long casts, it has to be said that the presentation was crap, with the yarn landing in a pile of nylon.

Malcolm meanwhile joined in, but was just looking at presentation rather than distance. He was getting up to around 77' without really trying to bust a gut. 

This is when Alan had a brainwave. He is quite smart at this teaching stuff, which comes in handy, what with him being a teacher and that.

He comes in to about 40? and asks us (Scotty and I)  to present a fly. We did, perfectly. He moved back a couple of yards and we got perfect presentation again.

In about 20 minutes, we were presenting the fly nicely at 80?, with the yarn landing at the end of a straight leader. A wee change from what was happening an hour before, with the yarn landing in a tangle of nylon. We were concentrating on technique and accuracy. A bit like a Brazilian striker?s controlled shot on goal versus a Scottish defenders blooter up the park.

The moral of this tale is that, if you want to be a better all-round caster, it is useful to accurately measure your casts. This might bring it home to you that your technique is not as good as you think it is. Distance casting is to my mind, pretty much divorced from real fishing, but the pursuit of distance for the sake of distance definitely helps to hone technique and thus leads to better all round line control, which can?t really harm your chances next time you are fishing.

Despite all the above I do still prefer the practising of accuracy and spey/roll and curvy casts. More my cup of tea and very relevant to the fishing I do.

Alex

[scotty9]

Great post Alex.

Without a shadow of a doubt the minute the tape came out my casting was by far in a way the worst. And really quite a stark difference to 20mins earlier. There really was nothing good about it, terrible tracking, awful line tension, pish loop (ha! what loop!). Now picking a target and really concentrating on presentation, what a difference - we stopped at 80' but in all seriousness they were fishable casts (not in the real world but if you had somewhere big enough....). I thought a really worthwhile exercise and one i will no doubt do again, it should definitely sharpen technique, nice one Alan!

Now i'm craving some water, i've got real casts to perfect - for 2 and a half months time!  :shock:

[Malcolm]

That's an interesting conclusion to your tests.

I arrived very late as usual after deciding that heading out on the river for my Sunday morning 16km rowing session wasn't the best idea (woose!) and left before the lesson of the day was finished.

However, the more I go along and try more gear out the more I am convinced that, for me, older slower rods ideal. All this marvellously precise very high tech gear around and the rod I feel most at home with is Gasman's 5 weight super slow Daiwa Whisker. It is just right.

However watching the way the others cast into the next valley with the Helios and various Sages (the dead still air and cold conditions meant they were a good 10-15 ft down on where I normally see them cast to) it is clear we're not all built the same.  

Try before you buy in other words.



That's my lesson for the day!  

[haresear]

Just a thought Alex, but do the rods react differently given the sub-zero temperatures you are casting in?
It might be worth while trying again with the Helios when the temperature has risen a little.

Then again, I could be talking pish Laughing

Aye, Steve, pish :lol:

Alan has a #5 Helios and I like it. It coped just fine in the conditions and I preferred casting Alan's rod to mine. It is a nicer rod, or it just suits my style.

I always will prefer to cast a #5 against a #6 and I prefer a #4 to both of those, so you can see that I'm always going to be biased towards the lower end of the AFTM scale.

As a control experiment and as an alternative to the tippy Helios, I set up my Sage XP #6 (more of a mid to tip) and felt much more in control. I like a rod to be a fishing rod and not primarily a casting rod. It just goes to show that one man's meat is another man's poison.

Another small thing to consider is that Scott's Shaky cost 35 quid against my Sage at about 560 quid.
:?

Speaking to Peter Anderson the other week, he said "rods don't matter. You can cast with anything". Peter is a bit em..forthright, but he is worth listening to.

Alex

 

[gasman]

 Allan sorry to bust your bubble, but there is not a hope in hell of you putting a sharskin line on my
Daiwa Whisker :makefun
Can anyone on the forum please give me any history of this fly rod please.
 How many forum members still on Daiwa fly rods and do you still use them ?

  Thanks  Gary :

[Fishtales]

Daiwa Whisker WF98 10' 3 piece. Used them since they first appeared, I am on my second

[scotty9]

I don't know where i stand on soft rods, they just take too long to do things IMO. Now not all are the same obviously! The nicest i've tried is Malcom's hardy, not super soft but definitely not a stiff rod...

I played with Alberto's TCR on Wednesday and all i'm saying is the results spoke for themself. Suit my casting stroke? Looks like it. It's not that hard to adapt to any rod but the stiffer/fast rod is what i'm most comfortable with i think. I've gone from hating these rods to really liking them  :shock: Got one coming from America  :

Gary - try the sharkskin, it's a serious eye opener! It's bloody fantastic!

[gasman]

 

Daiwa Whisker WF98 10' 3 piece. Used them since they first appeared, I am on my second
 
 Just  when did they first appear ?
I would like put an age to the fly rod. I am thinking about 20-25years.
Or am i way off.

Thanks Gary :

[gasman]

  Col do you still have this rod and do you still use it? :


Thanks Gary.

[Fishtales]

WF98 that will be 1998 then, these were the Whisker Fly

The previous ones were CF96, 1996, which were the Carbon Fly. I think it was one of these I started with when I went to Daiwa after I broke my 10' 3 piece Shakespeare.

Memory isn't so good. Maybe Highlander can add some more to this.