Marked lines / TRACKING

Walter & Group........

From Walter Simberski (On the subject of disallowing marked fly lines for exams) :-

Hi Gordy,

 

Just got in from a few days of incredible fishing.

 

Jim makes an excellent point regarding being asked to demonstrate with little or no notice.

I'll add an experience I've had - I was assisting another instructor with a course and out of the

blue I was asked to teach a section on curves and mends. What did I do? Had a good chuckle

and then taught the class curves and mends.

 

Back to marked lines (sorry to beat another dead horse but...). I advise people to mark their fly

line for the distance cast in order to be sure they have stripped enough line off the reel to

perform the cast. Is there any problem with marking the line for the distance cast? I don't

see why there should be but, again, best to be properly prepared. I could just strip out the

entire fly line but it would take a bit more time and then there would also be greater potential

for the line to get caught in the grass or other object or get stepped on.

 

Thanks

 

Walter

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Walter ......

The CBOG members didn't object to there being a mark at the rear of the fly line head.  The objection raised, was for any markings which could serve to assist a candidate in judging distance for the accuracy tasks.

I'd think it not a bad idea at all to put a mark ..... say at the 90' level so that the caster has about the right amount of line out of the rod for the 85' distance task.   That, however, is my own opinion.  Placing a mark there wasn't discussed at the meeting.  As I think about it, though, knowing the design of his own fly line and being able to check the mark at the rear of the head and then pull enough line out to make that cast is something any well prepared Master candidate ought to be able to do.  After enough practice, I submit he'd be able to do that in the dark !

When fishing from the deck of my flats skiff, I strip out a given number of line lengths for what I figure will be the longest cast I'm likely to need for the fishing circumstance.  Then I make that long cast, and then reel up any unshot line on my deck.  Any more line than that on the deck is there to tangle as you fish .... it is NOT your friend.  After doing that innumerable times, one gets a feel for it.   Same with the MCCI candidate who has probably made well over 1000 distance practice casts before testing.

Pulling out the entire fly line is not something I'd recommend for the reasons you stated.

Gordy

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From Jeff Barefoot on TRACKING :-

HI Gordy and group,

Should not "Tracking" include deviation in all directions? A three

dimensional concept. The term only describing left or right deviation can

only fit when the rod plane is vertical if we let it go at that. The

application of force applied between the effort of both hands also decides

how the rod tip tracks should be considered, I'm thinking. An example would

be if we apply an explosive acceleration early in the stroke the tip tracks

in a manner which produces a tailing loop. Even w/o any torsional factor and

a perfectly aligned rod to loop plane when we move the rod tip from one

place to another w/a flexable lever depending on the manner in which force

was applied the tip can track from convex to concave. And even using the

terms convex and concave are oversimplifications. Am I overcomplicating

this?

Jeff Barefoot

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Jeff....

You are guilty of trying to baffle us with logic !!!

When we started this discussion, I knew that you would jump in sooner or later.  It was YOU who taught many of us the principles of alternative loop planes, etc. years ago.  You have always been a stickler for planar details...  Good.

OF COURSE YOU ARE CORRECT .    Problem is that fly cast "speak" so often implies a vertical rod plane / casting plane when so often that is not the case.  As you note, any deviation from the (nearly) straight line path of the rod tip could be considered mal tracking, simply because the tip is taking an undesired path.

Another problem with fly cast "speak" is that for some reason it has become common to describe bad tracking as deviation from the straight line path of the rod tip from side to side (or right and left) to distinguish this particular occurence from other deviations from the desired path including convex and concave rod tip paths.

You are also correct that the simple descriptions of "convex" and "concave" are gross simplifications of what really happens.  Even the term SLP (straight line path) of the rod tip is something which almost never actually occurs when casting.  (If it did, one would have a collision between the fly line and the rod tip.)

 The terms, however, have enough real meaning to make basic rod tip path descriptions good enough for the teaching of any other than advanced casters.  If we got into the real technicalities of what happens, we'd quickly lose the attention and understanding of our students. 

 As instructors who strive to understand these details, we need to know all this.

Gordy