Carry (Part 6)

I'm hoping that everyone is on the same page with regards to the definition of 'carry' but I'll re-iterate it here just to make sure. Carry is measured from the point that you're holding the fly line, with your hauling hand, to the front end of the fly line i.e. it does not include the leader. Now the next bit is open to interpretation, especially when it comes to determining maximum carry. The 'rules' I apply to my own cast is that my maximum is what I can false cast repeatedly, with clean loops, until I decide to lay it down. Now, I could increase my carry from what I would say is my 'controlled' maximum up to the point where the cast becomes unstable and collapses and then claim that my best is maybe 10ft longer than what I consider it is, but that is stoking my ego rather than measuring anything useful. In fact, over the years I've cast side by side with many people who have a different interpretation of maximum carry to me and I've been left thinking that had they gone for one more cycle it would have been on the ground, like it or not. Then there's the ones who slip line on their final false cast, either into the backcast or more blatantly into the forward cast as they are laying it down – this is just cheating.

I find the best way to assess your carry is to put a marker on the line, this way you can pre-measure the line, thus you know exactly the carry when the marker is in your hauling hand. My markers (or flags as I call them) are simply pieces of Scotch tape folded over the line. I make them big enough so I can feel exactly when they reach my hand without having to look. Actually they're so big that they won't go through the stripper ring, so there's absolutely no point trying to shoot the line – but this isn't an issue when I'm purely training for carry. Tape flags are also easy to remove and replace should you feel the need to alter things. Obviously it's best to start this sort of training with a carry that you know you're going to be comfortable with and then work on things like taking the power out or shaping the loops. Then perhaps repeat this having added a couple of feet by moving the marker.

What I should warn against is doing this sort of fixed carry exercise with your best fly line. Because it's the same line that's in the tip ring for every haul, it can wear out pretty quickly. This is one of the reasons that I train with a shooting head. I have plenty of lines that I've retired for tournament casting that I cut down to make carry practice heads. A rough guide is to subtract maybe 15ft from the carry you want to practice with i.e. if you want to try an 80ft carry then make your shooting head 65ft long and place the marker (flag) 15ft back from the join in the shooting line. This will give a normal person a perfect amount of overhang assuming they are using a 9ft rod.

The practice head I use most is 75ft long, giving me a carry of 90ft. I don't feel the need to go longer than this as I think I launch an MED best from a carry of 85ft, so this feels relatively comfortable compared to my practice. I should also be honest here and say that it's not everyday that I can achieve the 90ft carry – once the wind starts getting up and the very end of the loop starts to crumple, I determine that I haven't made a clean cast, although the line may still all be in the air. I'll also point out that I spent some time practising with one of the best #5 casters out there, Bart, and we measured his carry at 80ft. So aerialising nearly 90ft of line clearly isn't absolutely necessary for very long casts (it was Bart who first beat Paul's BFCC #5 record).

I'd definitely encourage those out there wanting to improve their distance to work on their carry - chop up some of those old fly lines that I know you have in a desk drawer somewhere.

Hope you're having a great week,

James.