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Monday: Paul Arden
Tuesday: Harps
Wednesday: Bernd Ziesche
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3M Scientific Anglers produces a fly line named Mastery Expert Distance (MED). This line has an extremely long head (front taper + belly + rear taper) of 21m (69 feet) total length. Especially the 5wt. MED is available in a so called tournament edition. This special line comes in orange color and has a total length of 36,6m (120 feet). This line is what I like to call a true BEAST!

A beast? Yes, it's a hell of a beast!

During the past 10 years the 5wt. MED was used in many distance (fly casting) tournaments. Over the years more and more distance casters trained their casting using the 5wt. MED though. 10 years ago 33,5m (110 feet) seemed to be a serious distance to hit. 5 years ago 36,6m (120 feet) seemed to be excellent. And today 40+m (131+ feet) seems to be the edge, in which the best distance experts meet during the world championships in fly casting. Obviously distance casting the MED significally has been improved during the past decade. World wide that is.

I think (actually I am sure) it's fair to summarize it to be a long way becoming able to hit 130+ feet with the 5wt. MED. Yet there was always a tailwind involved in such huge distances. Now you may think it doesn't sound to hard to hit 130+ feet when having the help of a strong tailwind. And that holds true for a very few top distance casters on the planet. Those who have learnt to aerialise the full head (21m) outside the rod tip during false casting. I have seen less than 10 casters being able to do so in windy (tailwind) conditions. Tailwind is a very serious enemy fighting against ones back cast carry here!

Without having the whole head outside the tip (at least in the final back cast), I don't see how it would be possible to hit 130+ feet ever. It's exactly this extra long head making this fly line a beast. It took me quite some years to learn how to aerilaize and control such a huge carry.

Many great distance experts and fly casting instructors were helping me on this way. During the past decade I have been travelling a lot. I met with many fantastic casters and exchanged knowledge in order to get better. Especially the world championships in Norway have been very helpful to increase my max distance.

Last week I finally managed to hit 40-41,5m (131-136 feet) while having a nice (2-3 bft.) tailwind.

After 25 years of improving my fly casting skills it's fair to say: The BEAST is out!

Yes, the MED finally became a very good friend of mine and I love it. Ten years ago it was exactly opposite. I significally disliked that fly line. I am sure many of you who have tried it will know exactly what I am talking about!?

Now you may want to ask what exactly it was, that made me finally hit such a huge distance. The best advice I can give is to never just train your casting, but to have a target ALWAYS and in every casting session. If you don't know what exactly to improve, that's when you need help from someone who is able to teach you all details of distance casting. For me the only way to meet some of those few teachers who were on the top level here, was to travel.

Anyway I think we all have a different beast to fight from time to time.

I wish all of you a great week and hopefully your personal beast will come out, too!

All my best

Bernd

p.s.: Time to battle, Paul! ;)

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