Casting styles and Pileated Woodpeckers

[TurbineBlade]

Hi folks!  I return to the DC area tomorrow night and am looking forward to getting back to a steady routine of fishing (I've only been tying and casting over the past 2 weeks here in Missouri).  Beth got one of those new space-phones that takes pictures and connects to the internet, so I had her do a quick vid of me doing some false casting.  I recently read an article from Dan about casting styles and how to work on your distance, and after watching myself a bit it seems that I definitely fall into the "side-elbow" (Lefty Kreh) style of casting.  I wasn't 100% sure until I watched myself, but there's no denying it.  I kind of feel that this style is more prone to tailing loops without a smooth stroke vs. the front-elbow ('pulling down') style, but I'm comfortable with it and have come to accept it.  It seems easy to watch your backcast with the side-elbow, and it seems to keep the line out of the wind pretty well.  The other style feels weird and unnatural to me.  I mean, I can *kind of mess with it but my front cast drives basically straight down to the water with high speed. 

 

I did manage a 100' cast with a long belly line the other day for the first time, so I was happy about that! The end goal is to take an 8-weight to the Keys and easily be able to put a fly in front of a bonefish without casting mishaps.  Plus I enjoy casting and getting better with the equipment.    

 

Anyway -- just wanted to poke in here and post before I hit the road tomorrow!  Take care, and I hope everyone had a great holiday!  We sure did ;0. 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW7gJoORYrA

 

 

BTW -- there are juncos and woodpeckers all over the place here.  Trumpeter Swans too -- beautiful. 

 

 

Gene

 

 

[John Bilotta]

Gene,

Your casting looks good. Keep it up.

John

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[Jeffrey Silvan]

Good work, Gene. Looks real smooth. If your goal is bonefish in the keys, don't forget to work on accuracy on quick casts. I've been pretty good with accuracy, but doing it quickly to a moving target has always been a problem for me - particularly getting the distance right when I'm shooting the line out. Get a hula hoop or two, throw them down on the ground 40-60 feet out, and try to drop a fly in there on the third false cast starting with almost no line out. Distance is always great, but with sight fishing, you'll catch way more fish being able to accurately hit a target 40-60 feet out than being able to bomb a 100 footer somewhere in the same zip code as the fish. 

For advanced practice, go out with a couple people, tie some yarn on the end of your fly line, and have someone wander around 40-60 feet in front of you as if they were a fish. With your eyes closed, wait til someone - either a "guide" or the person wandering - yells the direction (like 10 o'clock, like a guide would), then open your eyes, pick them up, and see if you can drop the yarn in front of them as they continue moving.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tidal-potomac-fly-rodders/FCD52E49-20C6-4282-A645-AB0062E73275%40obassociates.net.