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[wjc]

 For those of you interested, here's a link to a great article on going for distance with a single handed fly rod, by Al Kyte and Gary Moran.

In it the strokes of a group of tournament distance casters and a group of well regarded good casters were compared with slow motion cameras casting the same rod and same line. The same amount of line out beyond the tip for all casters - no shooting line into the false casts allowed by either group - just a pick up, two false casts and shoot forward.

This was the first actual scientific test conducted like this I believe.

http://www.fedflyfishers.org/Portals/0/Casting/Master%20study%20guide%20articles/Al%20Kyte/Kyte-Going%20for%20Distance.pdf

Cheers,
Jim

[stevefishes]

Thanks Jim,  Just printed that out to keep and refer to when needed.  Really informative article and a good read also.

[shadowwalker]

Interesting read and amusing to me at the same time.  But then we all see things differently.   Folks are always going to get were they are going in there own way, didn't figure it took a machine to draw that conclusion.  Were there are many paths to a goal, most will find the one that suits them best. 

[wjc]

Hi Capt,

But then we all see things differently.

 Exactly!

I taught myself to throw flies at age 11 or 12 from two articles in Field and Stream. The second was how to double haul. After I got out of the service 12 years later, I grew tomatoes in CT and sold them at the beach for a living (using a scale and the honor system of paying for them), while I threw flies from the jetty with a brand new glass Fenwick 12 wt. that I special ordered.

I wanted to get back to the Fl Keys, close to where I grew up. After a couple months of daily casting for hours,  I was throwing the backing knot out of the rod tip. This was 1969 when few people up north threw flies in the salt, and other fly guys (freshwater) sometimes would walk out and ask me how I could throw the fly that far without any stop.

They were seeing a 3:30 to 8:30 rod arc when it was supposed to be a  10:00 to 2:00 arc or something like that. I couldn't explain it to them because I had no idea what I was doing - only that it worked for me. I had never read anything about the fly cast itself since I was 11 or 12 years old, nor had I ever had a lesson.

Now, however, I read everything I can about the mechanics of the cast, the aerodynamics of different loop shapes, how to change loop shapes, the effects of different line tapers and so on.

My own first preference is to read articles like the one above which are written from info gathered in controlled studies using high speed cameras and so on. That way I don't have to rely on how the author "sees things".

The reason I do this is because I would like to be able to teach casting, and I think I could do it better if I knew what is going on during all different styles of fly cast. Then I should be able to better analyse what  casters are doing wrong when they ask for advice.

I think a good instructor has to be able to describe the same thing many different ways to many different people as you have said on this site many times,  and get inside their head to see what way would be the easiest for them to understand.
 
But before doing that, I have to know what is wrong with the cast in the first place, and how to best correct it.

Cheers,
Jim

[shadowwalker]

Hi Jim, teaching people to throw a fly rod is really rather simple, all you have to do is tell em the truth.   Not as you understand it so much, but as they can relate to it.  Ninety percent of what people need to know about throwing a fly line they already know.  All you need to do is help them apply the knowledge they already have.  What could be simpler, works every time. 

[wjc]

What I've been doing this past year is learning the "truth" so I can tell it to em.

Instead of just "All you have to do is throw it all the way backwards then all the way forwards."

Cheers,
Jim

[shadowwalker]

What I've been doing this past year is learning the "truth" so I can tell it to em.

Instead of just "All you have to do is throw it all the way backwards then all the way forwards."

Cheers,
Jim

 Ah yes the ole windshield wiper technique, very amusing indeed, so much so that I often use that to get the laughter started, laughing students are learning students.  Several ways to get peoples attention, out of them all humor is great when teaching elected endeavors.    Personally I like to tell my students the reason most fly rod instructors are old fat guys (myself included) is cause they don't work near as hard as their doing.  Bad technique with a fly rod is one of the best weight loss programs I know of.  Oh well its just a way to open a dialog and I guess everyone has there own way of doing that too.  Like you I read books watched videos met a lot of the names watched them work and slowly began to figure out why what they were doing wasn't going to be my approach.   All that information and still something was missing, why are so many people struggling to connect the dots.  There had to be an answer so I went looking for the answer.  Like the poster reads "The truth is out there" and it is, my students taught it to me.