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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
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