Well aside from fact that I may have needed to
clean my line and Tom had incredible hearing (humor)
there are some obvious things:
Freshly cleaned lines do
sound different.
- A snap or crack would indicate that I need
to add more pause to allow the line to unroll completely. I've also
found
that it is very difficult to make a snap
unless many other aspects of your cast were very good (i.e. good
tracking,
tight loop). It's also impossible to make the snap
when shooting line.
Yes. I recall a
demo by Jason Borger years ago when he wowed the troops by purposly popping
baloons with the fly line "whip crack". Now THAT must have taken lots of
practice !
- A tick sound indicating the line touched the
ground would say my pause was too long.
Or the TICK on the
water.
- Me screaming obscenities would indicate that I
need to practice a lot more (sorry - more bad humor)
The not so obvious stuff -
- In a properly executed short cast the casting
stroke should be silent unless your goal is to overpower the
cast. Agree.
- For medium to longer casts the casting stroke
should be silent at the start and finish with a bit of a woosh
or hiss from the sound of the rod and line cutting
through the air. The timing of the wooshes indicates the cadence
of your cast. How the sound goes from silent to
maximum volume would indicate the smoothness of your
power application. How quickly the sound came to a
stop would indicate how quickly you executed your
stop. The final volume of the woosh would indicate
how much power was applied in the cast. Depending
on how good your hearing was or how quiet the
background noises are you could even have an idea of the
person's rod plane.
Yes. Then the very
different sound of the running line shooting through the
guides.
- Even if the casting stroke itself is silent you
should also be able to hear a person's movement due to clothes
rustling, etc. This can be used to tell many of the
things that you would hear from rod/line sounds.
One of the things I've found is that it can be
difficult to actually see smoothness just by watching a person
cast.
The best indicators of smoothness are the casting
analyzer, sound, and loop shape.
I don't fish with a CA,
and at night I can't see my loops ! Now, however, I can "feel" and "hear"
what yields good distance with minimum effort leading me to assume that the loop
must have been OK.
One last thing - by listening to rod/line sounds
and either watching the hauling hand or listening for movement
indicating the haul you can get a fine tuned idea
of the person's haul timing in relation to their casting stroke.
I hadn't thought of that
!
I'm sure there are many other things as
well.
Cheers
Walter
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From Michael Jones
:
If I hear a
swooshing of the rod, my immediate thought is 'too
much energy being expended' for the cast being made. If I hear a buzzing
of line, I know that the caster is financially secure enough to purchase a
sharkskin.
Michael Jones
Maine
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From Scott Swartz :
Gordy,
While not an answer to your question you
might enjoy trying this...
When a student is powering the rod much
differently in the forward and back strokes I will ask them to just keep casting
but to try to close there eyes and just "feel the casts". After a few closed eye
strokes I ask them to listen to their casts. The disparity of the speeds will
let them know which cast is "whooshing" the fastest.
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COMMENTS:
In the stillness of a
windless night or one of my pre-dawn trips out to the back country for tarpon,
I'm impressed by how well I can critique my own casting. When you can't
see, you become more attuned to the sounds of action ... even to the gentle
"slurp" of an approaching fish. To this is added a more distinct FEEL to
the cast.... both these two senses being hightened by the lack of
sight.
Years ago, Tom White would
have me close my eyes and make distance casts while carrying the same amount of
line prior to the presentation as I listened to the sound of the line in the
guides. We found that my "sightless casts" were smoother and the loops
better with better layouts the less noise I heard...... at least up to the point
that I was simply not using sufficient energy for the task. Had I smoothed
out my application of power ? Was I using a more constant acceleration
? I think so.
Later, as I was field testing
what were new and experimental Titanium-Nickle RECOIL guides made by
OEC, the sounds made by the fly line going through them was akin to a violin
being stroked by a bow .... much easier to hear and
appreciate.
Recently, we tried the same
thing with rods fitted with those guides ...... and a textured fly line (SA
SHARKSKIN). That produced the greatest tunes of all. Now we
had different amplitutes along with clearly different frequencies. Notes
to denote what was happening !
This became a neat self
teaching tool for me !
Gordy
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HAUL
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From Don Pendleton on
classifying the haul as he tries to bring us back down to Earth
:
Gordy,
I really like the term technique. After all we're
teachers are we not. That's a very simple word to describe what is a haul
to a student.
Don Pendleton
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