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Falsecast

Monday: Paul Arden
Tuesday: Harps
Wednesday: Bernd Ziesche
Thursday: Mr T.
Friday: Ray
Saturday: Viking Lars
Sunday: Bruce Richards

Ronan's report

Some years ago it was Aitor Coteron, who send me an email to ask, if I would be interested to run a fly casting course in Spain. Of course I was and soon we met. Aitor had organized a fantastic group of students. Actually all of those students already were fly casting teachers themthelves - like Aitor himselv or Alejandro Vinuales just to name two of them. I was mainly teaching about the details of the the EFFA exam, which the group was asking me to teach them about, and then I added a lot of ways how I were teaching my students, and what I understood to be the pros and cons of teaching itselv. The feedback of all participants after the course was very good. I think it was fair to summarize, we all had a great weekend and learnt a lot of each other.

Aitor and me from then on had tons of discussions about fly casting details. We both were very much interested in learning more about what really happens in fly casting. A year after that first course in Spain I again was visiting Aitor and at that time we ran two courses together. For the first time I met a slow motion camera, which Aitor just had bought. It was able to show fly casting in 650 frames per second. Crazy I thought. And yes, it really is crazy, because one then can see all the things, which one don't really want to know. Why? Because it makes one think to cast like shit all the time! :)

Anyway soon I too realized what fantastic abilities such a camera indeed offered us. Aitor and me now have spent quiet some time fly fishing as well as fly casting together. The slow motion camera always was with us (well, it was with Aitor to be correct here). Today I have my own slow motion camera, and in summary I have more than 1000 slow motion vids on my computer. Also I have well over 5000 videos in standard frame rate on my computer. All these (fly casting) vids I have studied frame by frame. Yes, it took me quiet some time, actually it was a hell lot of time I spent watching all those videos. Many vids I didn't just watch once, but many times again and again instead.

Since that first lesson in Spain some years back until today I have studied fly casting during thousands of hours. Without the help of Aitor and his slow motion camera (and now my own) a lot of things never would have come clear to me.

Reading a lot of books about fly casting I today can mark a lot of theories to simply be wrong based on what slow motion studies have proven to me. Also other instructors like Lasse Karlsson and Paul Arden have helped me with further slow motion videos. You may want to check our vimeo accounts to find just some of these vids.

Now I already know, that some of you will ask me, why one would need to understand all these small details of fly casting instead of just going on the field or entering a river and train casting instead. Well, that to me is a fair question especially in regard of how many hours it cost and still costs me to make and study all those vids. But one thing I guarantee you: The more you understand about fly casting, the faster you can learn it and the better you will get. Knowing how it works leads you to know what exactly to train. And that is what really speeds up and improves your success in fly casting and finally fly fishing, too. Besides that learning more about fly casting is a lot of fun, isn't it?

I hope some of all our vids might help you, too. No doubt there is more to come!

To add a few links to some great videos:

Aitor Coteron

Alejandro Vinuales

Lasse Karlsson

Gordon Judd

Bernd Ziesche

All my best

Bernd

p.s.: I think I have to teach Paul, how much fun it can be to (fly) fish for eels! ;b

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