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Monday: Paul Arden
Tuesday: Harps
Wednesday: Bernd Ziesche
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Sunday: Bruce Richards

Ronan's report

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In my last frontpage I wrote about (some) KEYS TO DISTANCE. Of course this is Sexyloops and some keys opened a discussion on the BOARD.

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I marked the typical characterstics on high distance casts to be a) an extra tight loop front and a straight (as possible) fly-leg, b) highest possible line speed and c) an upward trajectory in the forward cast. In order to achieve all three I listened some key factors. The STOP was one of them.

Now Paul denied the stop to be important (for distance): "It’s not the stop that matters, it’s what happens before that matters. Everything has happened with regards line speed, trajectory and loop formation before this stop which is very different from stopped casts. When teaching stopless I ask the student to flop the rod and stick the tip into the ground."

In fact Paul by far isn't the only instructor who teaches to cast stopless for distance. Here is what Lasse Karlsson recommends: "You do not stop the rod, you just run out of space to rotate, and that’s after the line has been given it’s velocity for the cast to happen. Stopless is like Paul says, powering through the point where normal people try to stop the rod abruptly."

I am not sure what normal people are about. But it's in my oldest book about fly casting in which the author recommended to stop the rod at 10:00 and 14:00 (2pm) o'clock. No need to tell it was - what today we like to call - the rod straight position he was referring about. So let's have a look where some of the best distance casters I met during the past two world championships in Norway stopped their rods (rod straight position) in order to hit the big three ( a), b) & c) as mentioned above) for their delievery casts.

The results are shown in the pic of the day section. Most distance experts stoped their rod around 10 o'clock. Not much surprising to me though. Since many older books, videos, articles and so on recommended to abruptly stop at around the 10 o'clock position, it seems fair to call this a classical stop position. By the way the one picture in the pic of the day section presenting the back stop (of Leif Christensen) shows what easily may happen to the (initial) loop shape due to a horizontal stop: The rod-leg may happen to offer a large front against the tailwind (as Leif had it in that cast).

Now you may want to ask what ABRUPT really means. To me it means a high rate of deceleration - significant higher compared to the rate of acceleration being used in the same cast! A fair question seems to be which cast would have a higher rate of deceleration than the one in which the caster is running out of arm at the end of his/her stroke? My answer: None. And in fact it was exactly that what made many stops (to delievery) I saw in the world championships very abrupt.

Again Paul and Lasse said everything BEFORE the stop to be far more important. In my opinion the art of how to stop the rod is very important. But I agree everything else pre starting to decelerate is very important in regard of the big three as well. Indeed the lower the rate of deceleration (stopping the rod) will be, the less percentage of the overall stroke will be available for acceleration. A non abrupt (or smooth) stop won't leave much room to create highest possible line speed before running out of arm in the end of the process of stopping the rod. Process of stopping the rod? Yes, it's a PROCESS and the rod straight position is just a single position in it. In regard of highest line speed and trajectory it's a pretty important position though.

Bruce Richards just in his last Sunday frontpage was mentioning his Casting Analyzer in order to measure the rates of rotational acceleration and deceleration. In fact all graphs I saw proved me to be spot-on about the rate of deceleration to be much higher compared to the rate of acceleration. I guess that's why someone long time ago choosed the word ABRUPT to make the process of stopping the rod easy understandable.

The board also discussed "where to position the main rotation of the rod during the stroke". As mentioned in my last front page this in my experience should be near the end of the stroke. Late? No, just at the right time. ;) Of course there will mostly be translation and rotation happening at the same time during the whole stroke, if we take it to DETAIL. But the "power snap" - as Joan Wulff likes to recommend it - was definetly positioned in the last third of the stroke for the best distance shoots I videolized during the world championships. The winner in 2014 Tor Gjersöe positioned his main rotation during the last third of his stroke as you may check in the pic of the day section.

In the end a lot of answers simply depend on everyone's exact definitions. In my definitions there is no such cast like a stopless one. And there is also no cast in which not at least some micro rotation will take place during the first half of the stroke. But when aiming for a tight loop I position my main rotation during the last third of the stroke.

Nice definitions to all of you!

All my best

Bernd

p.s.: Paul, Lasse, since both of you are teaching a stopless (different from the classical stopped) cast for distance shoots... How exactly do you define it? Both of you stop your delievery shoot at around 10:00 o'clock (RSP) in a pretty high rate of deceleration which seems opposite from anything I'd call to be a smooth stop!?

p.p.s.: I yet don't see why you would run out of possible (additional) rotation at around 10:00 o'clock either?

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