Hi Gordy,
You may know MCCI Eric Sherar who lives along the central
coast of California. He recently posted a series of 21 videos on Youtube
documenting his effort to teach someone to cast over about 1 ½ hours time
period. Taking place over a 2 day period his goal was to teach the double haul
before any single hand methods. It seemed to work out well with this particular
student.
They are marked clip 1 through clip 21. You will have to sort
through the clips on the right hand column to find the next clip in line. It
takes an hour and a half of time but the experiment as a whole is worth looking
at and considering for use. In any case it should be of some benefit to
the members of your MCCI master study group.
Guy
Manning
FFF Master
Certified Casting Instructor
Moderator FFFCCI
Yahoo Group
www.castflys.net
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Guy .... Yes,
indeed.... This is worth studying.
Teaching by almost leading
with a double haul is something we've been saying is a NO
NO.
It can work,
however as this experiment shows.
One thing with haul
teaching, is that it is one of many methods which serve to have the student get
the feel of line tension with both rod and line hand.
A couple of years ago, I
picked a young lady out of a group of folks as I was giving a Master Prep demo
for Peter Lami's group in Atlanta. After spending about 3 minutes with
this gal who had not been a fly caster, I had her with enough of a basic false
cast to proceed. Using a ground-casting method, I had her double hauling
in the horizontal rod plane, and immediately had her go to an off vertical plane
as she cast rather well using a double haul. From that point, it took
another 2 minutes to teach her to shoot a bit of line. THE WHOLE DEMO
LESSON TOOK 12 MINUTES.
Did she understand any real
fly casting mechanics ? NO. Could she self correct her
mistakes ? NO.
Could she go out and fish
? YES.
Speaks to teaching under
unavoidable time constraints.
An aside to MCCI
Candidates: REALIZE THAT THIS IS AN INTERESTING EXPERIMENT WHICH
WORKED. On your orals, be careful to recognize this. As you
know, most seasoned instructors feel that the double haul should not be taught
until the basic cast has been learned and practiced.
As with all answers to exam
questions, you must be prepared to clearly and concisely defend any answer you
give.... especially if it flies in the face of conventional wisdom.
Give SHORT accurate
answers. Be ready with more detailed explanations, but don't offer these
unless and until asked.
Gordy
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Rate of Line Fall
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Hi Gordy,
If I cast a line and allow it to fall to the
ground, then have someone take the fly in their hand and walk away from my
raised rod tip, the line will eventually lift off the ground as tension
increases.
Since the unrolling loop, at any particular
instant during an unshot cast, is exerting a similar, if lesser, force
on a stationary rod leg, it still seems
reasonable to me to conclude that such force might be a contributor to hang
time.
Walter
asserts that the notion of tension increasing hang time is an illusion. Could he
please explain why the above is not credible?
Regards,
Tony.
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Tony... Exactly my own
question. One end is allowed to free fall whilst the other is
being supported by the rod tip.
Gordy
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Walter's
answer:
Gordy - I sent you an email about that some time
ago. It must have gotten lost during one
of your server overloads.
The reason I say the hang time is an illusion is
because tension in the line makes it act like a rod
in some respects. We have one end supported by the
elevated rod tip and the other end is in free
fall but the line is basically acting like a rigid
rod in between these two points.
If we take a 50 foot rigid rod and support it at
one end and then raise the other end until the
rod is horizontal and then release it the free end
will indeed free fall at the rate dicated by gravity.
Since the other end is supported the entire rod
pivots around this point. If we look at just the 10
feet of the rod starting at the pivot point it will
appear to fall very slowly but we are still obeying
the laws of gravity.
As you noted previously when we lose tension in the
line the whole works falls in a catenary curve
and the illusion is broken.
Thanks!
Walter
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Walter... Crystal clear
!
G.
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