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Walter & Group...
>From Bob Rumpf:
Hi Gordy & group,
You mentioned in the your message that natural fly casters are rare and that is why they are remembered. This is true, and while on this train of thought, I would like to bring up a student I once had for a two-hour lesson. He was a tall athletic young man from France, visiting friends, when they decided to take a fly casting lesson. Although he never cast before, within an hour he was casting very nice easy loops out to forty feet. I explained drift and worked with him for only several minutes, after that brief tutoring, he began casting almost flawlessly out to 50 and even 60 feet. He actually cast that well that I asked him several times if he was just putting me on and had cast before. He told me he truthfully did not. I found this episode just short of amazing. I was actually sorry to see this guy leave.
Another thing as regards practice. Many times a student, particularly my long-term students, call or e-mail me to tell me they are disappointed with their progress. I have found a good way to get them feeling better, is to tell them not to look at how much better you are than you were yesterday. Noticeable improvement in casting, as a rule, does not come about overnight. But if you compare how you are casting today, with how you were casting a month ago, you'll see you've made vast improvement. Almost all agree and are encouraged to continue. What we do, if we do it well, is based on how much we encourage and inspire these people.
Regards,
Bob Rumpf
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Bob,
Dennis Grant once told me that some of his students who returned each season to his Atlantic Fly Fishing School in Nova Scotia had not practice in the interim. Their performance made this obvious in short order.
Gordy
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>From Tom Scheer:
Yoda ( akaGordy)
19. Do you know any practice tricks to help you learn to make small loops when roll casting?
I like to pick a target about eye level for my forward casting stroke rather than casting at the water. Also stop the rod “before midnight” on the forward stroke
One of the most powerful instruction "tools" I ever received was from my CCI tester John VanDalen, who stressed "no power before midnight ", when roll casting. I have used that phrase relentlessly with students to good end. Stopping the rod "before midnight" confuses me, Can you elaborate please in some detail how this fits the five principles? I doubt being alone in my puzzlement.
huge thanks and regards for your efforts, and this exchange of ideas.
Tom
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[GH] Tom,
It's not "stop the rod before midnight", rather : NO POWER 'TIL MIDNIGHT, (i.e. NO POWER BEFORE MIDNIGHT) as you stated in your second paragraph. If your first sentence was a typo, rest assured, I've been guilty of worse.
Well.... As I see it, this fits with Bill Gammel's essential that: "Power must be applied at the correct time and in the correct amount".
Sometimes interpreted and offered as: "Power must be applied in the proper amount and in the proper place in the stroke"
or: "Proper acceleration of the fly rod. ....The hand accelerates the rod slowly at first and continues to increase in speed until the rod reaches a position perpendicular to the target* at which point the rod hand accelerates even faster......"
* "Midnight"
Many different iterations have appeared over the years since Bill and his father, Jay Gammel, came up with these.
Now, most experts take the position that for best results we need "smooth acceleration" to a stop sequence.
Bruce Richards refers to his Casting Analyzer readouts of really efficient casts to opine that it goes even further in that the best results are attained with "constant" acceleration. Still others have challenged the strict correctness of this as they see slight (probably unavoidable) deviations from a pure 1:1 slope of the acceleration "curve" at either end of it. For practical purposes, however, I think Bruce comes closest to what really happens since with expert casts, the main slope of the acceleration curve does represent constant acceleration.
Jason Borger has shown that the change in the angular velocity of the rod butt (due to acceleration) occurs in a shorter period of time with expert roll casting compared with straight line overhead (conventional) casts. He stated that he felt this was necessary in order to break what he called, "water tension" *
Whatever the exact physics explanation might be, the term, "No power 'til midnight" works well with students because it emphasizes the folly of using excessive force too early in the stroke which can lead to many problems including mismatch between rod bend and casting arc, poor loop control, and even tails.
Putting it simply, it's a little white lie which gets the job done well! A good PRACTICE TRICK.
* Jason Borger's NATURE OF FLY CASTING a modular approach, by Jason Borger, 2001, p.156.
Gordy ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From Kirk Eberhard (Host of the THCI Study Group) :
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[GH] No "copyrights", $$$$, or politics here. We are here to help one another. Period.
Our Master Study Group members who are contributing their valuable input deserve the credit.... not their moderator.
All I do is start up the mill and add a few comments. They provide the grist!
Gordy
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>From Gary Davison:
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