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Walter & Group...
[GH] I think there is a lot to be learned from Lasse Karlsson's message and my experience out on the water this morning. We will probably never exhaust the controversy or the discoveries relating to the Tailing loop.
Let me begin my making a couple of brief comments within the text of his message in red .
Hi Gordy
Great everlasting topic!
There's a few points I disagree with ;-)
A true concave tip path will not give a tailing loop, it will create a upside down loop, the tail only comes when the tip path has a wave in it, resembling something like an S shape.
[GH] I wondered about that. Sometimes I do form a gentle enough concave rod tip path and do not get a tailing loop. When i do it with a very sharp , energetic burst of power, I do get a tail every time. I think you are correct that the reason for this is that the latter move yields the propagated wave and the former does not. Perhaps you or others have proven this with high speed video. I didn't.
Lefty's straight acceleration causing a tail is interesting, but that would mean I should be getting a tail every time I hand cast, and that is not the case. I think I can see where he is coming from with it, but it is not the case, and somewhat impossible to maintain a true straight line with a flexible lever/fishing rod throughout the cast. It is possible with hand casting :-)
[GH] I've never been able to make a tailing loop when hand casting.
Lefty also uses a dipping tip path to demo tails as can be seen in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/user/gordonjudd#p/u
[GH] Because of the limited frame size, I can't actually see Lefty's rod tip. I can infer from his hand path and what I can see of the rod bend, that his rod tip may have a dipping path.... just cannot be certain of this. Fortunately, I have watched him do this .... and did so critically because of the wide controversy over his statements on tails in his writings.
I have noted him making tails as he says he does and seen a slightly dipping rod tip path. i have also seen him do it with what, to me, (no video) looks like an almost straight line rod tip path and no dip of the tip as the loop starts to form leading to a collision. Of course, my observations are just what I see with the naked eye and no where near as accurate as when seen with sophisticated video technique. ...... so not to be taken as gospel.
Gordon Judd has an interesting video that can be used to look at straight tip path aspect filmed for another reason:
The line is laying straight behind the cup, and the line is then pulled from below the cup and the propagating loop climbs up, not crashing into the cup and not creating a tail.
[GH] Perhaps I'm being dense. I do see the climbing loop with no evidence of a tail. I'd need more information, however, as to how this was done i.e.. hand casting ? Casting with a flexible rod ? I'd also need to know just what the caster did to achieve this.
Also:
What determines how far out the tail will form when due to a concave rod tip path ?
- The earlier during the stroke the fault is made, the closer to the caster the tail forms.
- (The later during the stroke the fault occurs, the farther away from the caster the tail forms. )
- This is just the opposite of what happens when we make a mend (repositioning the line after loop formation .
I disagree, if the tippath dips and rises in the very beginning of the stroke, the tail shows up at the end of the cast, just before final turnover, if I violently stop to soon and cause the tippath to dip and rise at the end of the stroke, the tail is right at me. Good example from Bruce Richards here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58DHNw5teeI The dip and rise of the tip happens at the end of max rotation which would be the end of the stroke, and the tail happens above his head.
Just as with the arial mends, if we make the move right at loop formation the mend travels all the way out, if we make the tail right at the beginning of the stroke, it has to travel all the way out before it can manifest itself truly.
[GH] Long but important story behind this. See, below.
Cheers
Lasse
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[GH] Lasse's last paragraph on how far out the tail forms relative to the position during the stroke where the "fault" is made is important to note.
A lesson to be learned !
For some time, now, I have remembered Tom White's teaching of this the way I wrote it in our last message.
As soon as I read Lasse's contradiction, I bristled and got ready to defend my position. I literally went over this again and again in my half sleep revery last night. This morning, I got up fresh and relaxed and went out alone in my skiff at dawn and caught a small tarpon in a shrimp hatch on a 5 wt. Beautiful serene weather and early sunrise. Idyllic setting for some deep thought.
A shark appeared and that concluded the fishing for tarpon.
Then I worked for well over an hour with a glassy calm sea and no wind just making tails. All of them made simply by using a crisp spike of power as early as I could as I began my stroke. I kept doing it the same way noting my tails appearing well out at the end of the line.
I HAD MADE 4 DISTINCT KNOTS IN MY LEADER AND ONE JUST ABOVE THE LEADER CONNECTION !
I changed leaders and took out the overhand knot in the fly line.
This was followed by a long self teaching session designed to become competent in placing the spike of power as late as possible before loop formation. (It is MUCH harder for me to do that ! )
Bottom line, is that I was able to place 3 knots in the line one of which was back at the end of the forward taper, and not one in the leader or at the end of the line.
Before eating my breakfast, I went to my den and dug out all of Tom White's noes on tailing loops.... but could not find any on the position of the tail relative to the stroke action.
Conclusions :-
1. After a few years, I had probably not remembered what Tom had taught me. (Though I thought I had.)
2. Lasse is correct. I was wrong.
3 I had applied correct logic to a faulty premise.
a. It IS true that what the caster does during the stroke affects mainly the fly leg of the loop.
b. What the caster does after the stroke (after loop formation) does affect mainly the rod leg. (This is what we do as we make aerial mends.)
4. By actually going out and proving something to myself as I cast, I had come to the correct conclusion.
5. I'll revise my Tailing loop message.
One of the great things about our Group is that it provides us with information as seen by multiple eyes. A true peer review accomplishment. This is a case in point.
Gordy
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