More teaching tricks : accuracy from a skiff

Walter & Group...

Great suggestion from Dusty Sprague:-

Neat idea from John's about the remote controlled vehicle/boat. 

 

I find some casters underestimate distances on water, when judging distances to fish or other objects from the deck of a skiff.  Initial casts often fall short.  To provide the caster with some true reference, I've found a long cord, with small floats spaced 10 feet apart, tied to the bow cleat then stretched out from the bow 80 feet or so, then anchored, to be a useful tool for a bit of casting practice for my guests and students.  Later, when I call out a fish at an estimated distance, my friend on the bow has a much better idea of how far I'm looking. 

 

Dusty 

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Dusty...

 

Yes, indeed !   While practicing for accuracy on the water, I made rings of white 2" diameter bilge pump hose.  I sealed the ends.  They float high.  Then I attached nylon cord to  each with distance markers.  I staked out or anchored and let them go with the weather (wind and current) and practiced casting to them.  Made me a much better flats fisherman even though I'd been doing it for many years.

 

In line with that...  When I'm guiding one of my friends, sometimes I have trouble getting them to understand just how far away the sighted fish is.  The call most guides use  goes like this : BONEFISH AT 3 O'CLOCK -- 40 FEET !

Unless the angler is an accomplished flats fisherman, he'll sometimes look to port rather than starboard as he confuses 3 o'clock with 9 o'clock.  The "40 feet" may have him looking at 20 feet.  Now I do it this way:

 

                               LOOK TO YOUR RIGHT.  BONEFISH ONE FULL CAST AWAY.   If the fish is only 20' away, I say,

 

                               ...... HALF A CAST AWAY.         If the fish is coming toward us but is still out of range, I may say,

 

 

                               ......TWO CASTS AWAY AND COMING.      Let's say I see a fish way off .... say 200' away and I'm fishing one of my FFF buddies,   Then :

 

                               ...... ONE RAJEFF AWAY !

 

Works for me.

 

Gordy

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                                                                           Fly line backing

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Tony Loader answers my question on backing tensile strength being diminishes after absorbing water:

 

Hi Gordy,

 

I did contemplate the spreadsheet format. Was a little put off by the fact that many characteristics e.g. slickness, diameter, stiffness, stretch, can represent both an advantage and a disadvantage dependent on circumstances.

 

The strength of dry mono vs that which has absorbed water is not something I've tested and may be only hearsay. I'll be away and out of touch for a few days but will pursue it then if someone else has not cleared it up before.

 

Regards,

Tony

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COMMENT:  Now I remember that some anglers claiming a record sent their tippets and lines to IGFA soaking in water, because of the fact that tests had shown that nylon mono tensile strength did diminish after the material had absorbed water.

 

Intuitively, that  leads me to think that the same thing would be true of any braided nylon as well ..  I don't know about Dacron or gel-spun materials.

 

Gordy