Tom
There are several factors which come into play when casting for distance.
The design of the rod, the design of the fly line, the type of guides on the
rod(some guides will have less friction against the running line. The
biggest factor is your own athletic ability and the amount of practice
casting you do. Casting is no different than any other sport and every sport
has super stars. Not every baseball player can hit 60+ homeruns in a season.
Regards
Mel
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Davenport" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 4:56 PM
Subject: [VFB] Distance Casting
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
