----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2005 9:22
AM
Subject: More tips for practice
Hi, Group.....
Here are a few more tips for practice casting:-
1.) Minimize your casting arm fatigue, by placing your rod/reel
under your arm whenever between casts....like when you are thinking or
talking with others. Shake out your casting hand as you do this.
2.) When practicing distance casts, use a 2 handed retrieve with
the rod under your arm. It's also a time saver.
3.) Collect your loops of line on the grass in front of your zero
mark....THEN take a step back behind the mark and make your cast.
Getting into this habit will negate the likelihood of standing on your line
while practicing and (especially) while being tested.
4.) When sharpening your loop control skills, do so with varying
amounts of line out of the rod tip.
5.) Practice controlled loops using different rod planes. Note
the necessity to increase line (loop) speed as you go more horizonal.
6.) Teach yourself to make perfectly controlled loops using no line
hand.
7.) Make these controlled loops using ever decreasing line speed so
that they are done very slowly without losing perfection. THIS ISN'T
EASY......BUT MAKES FOR MUCH BETTER DEMONSTRATION, AS THE LOOPS AND ROD
MOTIONS ARE SO MUCH EASIER TO SEE.
8.) Practice your tailing loops so that you can do them in a couple of
different ways. DO NOT MAKE THEM BY SHOVING YOUR ROD TIP UP INTO THE PATH OF
THE LINE. (This is a poor demo...because it is NOT the way your student is
likely do do it.)
Get proficient in doing it the way students do it......either by the
use of a spike of power in the middle of your stroke, or by making an
obvious creep prior to the spike.
9.) For MCI candidates, practice your back cast tailing loops
using more line out of your rod tip than is matched by your stroke length,
without changing rod planes. Make sure you can do it slowly, with an
easily seen tail every time.
10.) In practicing wind casts, it's best to orient your self with
respect to actual wind conditions, so you actually have the wind to deal
with. Practicing this with no wind is not nearly so valuable a self
teaching tool. Doing this way out in the middle of a grass field, and
turning to a different wind quadrant for each cast is a good way to do
this.
11.) Spey casting practice on water is the only way to get the skill of
anchor placement and timing down.
12.) Practice on grass can have its problems....especially if
there are weeds and other, "grass cleats". Not a bad idea to take a
large bath or beach towel upon which you can coil your line at your zero
point.
13.) Joan Wulff recommends that you always cast to some sort of
target. I think she's right.
14.) While practicing distance casting, DON'T MEASURE YOUR
DISTANCE ACHIEVED BY THE MARKS ON YOUR FLY LINE !!!!!! Always measure
by where your fly lands in relation to a measured target distance.
15.) With distance practice, be as critical of your leader layout as
with the position of your fly. Proficiency is measured, not only by
the distance traveled by the fly, but by whether you have a neat turnover of
your leader and a reasonably straight layout. (Remember, a good
straight layout is the product of good controlled casting combined with a
properly designed leader assembly.)
16.) After pleasing yourself with distance accomplishment, start
working at making the same distance with a LOT less effort.
17.) We've emphasized the point that watching your back cast
loops is a good way to improve them. However, there are some casts
which MUST be done by observing the targets....not your back cast.
This is why you must finally get to the point of making controlled back cast
loops while not observing them. For this, it's important to make them
while having a buddy critique them for you, repeatedly.
18.) It's not a bad idea to have some practice sessions in
differing conditions....like fog, wet sticky grass, windy days, cold days,
hot days.....etc. That way you'll feel confident to test under any
conditions.
19.) For long practice sessions, it is a good idea to use as light a
reel as possible. A heavy real provides inertia which makes a crisp
STOP more difficult, and it results in greater arm fatigue. If I have
a real problem with a particular cast, I like to shorten my line, remove the
reel (placing it at my feet) and then make many attempts, until I've solved
the problem.
20.) Cleaning and lubricating your line prior to your practice sessions
is a very good idea. A dirty line can cause many subtle casting
problems.
21.) Choosing a practice site with light and a contrasting
background can make your observations of your line much easier to see.
This is particularly true for critique of your back cast loops.
22.) Tom White taught me to LISTEN as I practiced. By
actually hearing the line as it traverses the guides, this may well be
telling you that you are using too much power for the task.
23.) In teaching yourself to be good at curve casts to the right
and the left, I found that I could get a lot more casts in a given period of
time and with little arm fatigue, by using only 30' of line out of the rod
tip, and repeatedly making curves to each side without letting the line fall
to the ground. This doesn't work with the distance corkscrew casts,
but it does with most of the others.
24.) While practicing your, "explain and demonstrate" events,
learn to express 2 things:
a. A statement of the problem. (Such as:
The wind is blowing from my casting arm side and will blow the line into
me.)
b. A statement as to what you are trying to
accomplish. (Such as: I need to place a mend upstream of a tongue of
current in order to have a drag free drift of my fly.)
25.) Don't simply practice perfect casts. Take plenty of time to
practice FAULTS. This way, you can demo to students what they
look like, and how they occur.
26.) As you make these faulty casts, talk to yourself as you describe
each one in terms of, ERROR, RESULT, and CORRECTION.
27.) Another way do do this, is to verbalize Bruce Richards' 6 step
algorithm as you purposely make each faulty cast and then go on to
correction.
28.) Those lucky enough to be able to practice with a buddy of similar
or equal casting ability have a real advantage ! When you help
one another, you really increase your learning !!!!
29.) Practice sessions done when you are wide awake and full of energy
are much more productive than those done when you are tired. For me, I
find that the first light of morning after a cup of coffee is best......but
that's an individual consideration.
30.) Teaching is actually wonderfully good practice. Fishing is
not, because your attention is on the fish....less so on the casting.
31.) After completing each practice session, I sometimes make little
notes on a pad as to what I've taught myself....or what I need to work on at
the next session.
32.) Bruce Richards makes a point of recommending that you have an
outfit all strung up and ready to go for easier and more frequent practice
sessions. Good idea (if you can)
Gordy