Acceleration

Gordy and all,

Upon studying Bruce’s article in the recent issue of The Loop, I do not find any contradiction between what I am saying and what their casting analyzer graphs show regarding my understanding of the necessity of the acceleration of the cast being an accelerating acceleration. In fact, it fully supports my premise.

If you look at the graphs on page 9, the one on the left indicates what they are calling a near constant acceleration. But in actual fact, that acceleration is not a straight line. It is a curve, and just because the curve looks slight does not mean that we can discount it as unimportant. That curve indicates that the acceleration was progressively increased throughout the cast. The fault with the cast graphed on the right is that the acceleration of the acceleration was not smooth. A sudden surge of power was applied about 1/3 of the way through the rotation, which of course made the rod tip dip and likely created a tailing loop.

Bruce’s point is certainly correct, that the application of power must be smooth, but that does not exclude accelerating the acceleration throughout the rotational part of the cast. That can be done smoothly as well. I think my main disagreement with the way they are stating their case is that they are equating "near constant" with "constant". That is not accurate. The expert caster’s acceleration through the rotation was not constant. It was a smooth acceleration of the acceleration. I continue to maintain that if the acceleration is not speeded up throughout the rotational phase of the cast that the rod will not progressively load more deeply throughout that phase.

Dermon

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Dermon... Can't argue with your observations. Certainly DOES show a curve even though not much .... and it makes your point very well. While it is true that constant acceleration will maintain the rod load, to increase that load it does make sense that one would need at least some increase in that acceleration.

Sort of the same reasoning behind our mantra that we need a straight line path of the rod tip for a tight loop, whereas the truth is that it would likely yield a collision .... so what we really have, for efficient loop formation, is an "almost" straight line path which is really a very slightly convex path for efficient casting.

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Group: Don't forget our question out there on what fishing situation would apply for the use of an 11' long soft action 7 wt. rod.

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