We had a beautiful day today in Utah to start our Christmas break,
but the list of honey-dos kept me from going fishing. I was finally
free about an hour before sunset and decided to go out and do a
little casting with a five weight Scott SAS rod I built.
I have actually never measured my casts, so I was curious to know
exactly how far I could cast comfortably. I was standing in a park
adjacent to a parking lot with the parking stalls spaced 9 feet
apart. I counted out 10 stalls and marked it with a paper cup.
My first cast, just to get the line out went 82 feet. I thought with
a little effort I could easily make it past the 90 foot mark. But it
was not to be. The harder I tried, the shorter I cast.
So finally I decided to reel in and just see how far I could cast
comfortably, without "trying hard" I made a nice easy cast but I
didn't have enough line out and the line pulled hard against the reel
when it came to the end. I measured that, and it was about 75 feet!
So I stripped out 10 feet more and cast about 85 using the same easy
stroke. I never did reach the 90 foot mark.
82-85 feet seemed to be the the magic length for me. Any further and
I started to get more line out in the back cast than I could
comfortably handle.
Since you are likely to ask, I was using a double haul.... i guess.
Actually for me it is more like a "pumping" motion, a pump when I
load the rod with the backcast and another when I load it with the
forward cast. It is something I am doing all the time, so I never
really think of it as anything more than the casting stroke.
So, how do they do it, these guys who are throwing out line well over
100 feet? Anybody out there have any experience with distance
casting? I seldom if ever have to cast that far when fishing (I have
a hard time seeing a dry fly at 50 feet) but still I am curious how
it is done.
Tom
- [VFB] Distance Casting Tom Davenport
-
