David Siskind | Sunday, 21 June 2026
In the park working on my loops and going through the gears, experimenting with trajectory and tension, I started to feel so clumsy that I decided to look away from the targets, feel the line, and dance with my feet to support my casting blind. I let my dogs walk a bit, feeling my toes. Everything started to pull together. Unlocking my knees and staying light on my feet smoothed everything out. Tracking improved, timing improved, loops became more controlled. I’m sure this feeling is transient - everything is. But there is an enduring take-away - “the toe bone’s connected to the foot bone, the foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone ...” Feeling our bodies and seeing the world around us connects the grip of toes on the ground to movement and awareness of the entire muscular chain toward the rod tip. As long as everything is allowed to move the body will find its way (is the theory). Only after freeing my feet could I productively get back to my loop and trajectory experiments and drills. All of this is further endorsement of the Walking Drill.
Sometimes I wonder whether the movement of ideas and trends that I perceive reflects their evolution or the evolution of my curiosity. The ALGORITHMS are likely working at making me feel like the latter is the former - by design. Still, I’m not creating the content. My training journey has been my own and looking through my little window I feel the long trend has been from the dominance of reductive methods toward dynamic and integrated programs. From nautilus, toward freeweights, then kettlebells and clubs, and further toward animal flow, and multiplanar mobility.
I’m just now adding some club swings which should further my visceral understanding of the whole-body chain powering the fly cast. My first steel club is in the mail so I’m using a knotted towel and sometimes a small broom. I’ve been following Mark Wildman for a few years for his kettlebell training advice but, though intrigued, never tried the clubs. Last week my latest favorite mobility influencer, VenusFit, recommended club swings as a means of learning some good functional movement patterns that are widely useful in sports, reminding me that Gunnar Brammer also recommended the Wildman programs a few years ago, as these swings apply directly to flycasting movements.
Also this week, I arranged to meet Ben Crump at the beach to look for corbina, so to prepare I took my HT6 and full sinking line (I think it’s a SA SONAR Surf WF6S), and hookless weighted crab to the park. Timing for me is a struggle with this combo. The weighted crab wants to fly on its own and the loop has to be thrown to keep tension ahead of it. Constant tension, oval casts, and slips, to eliminate the clunk, work best for me, but all seemed clumsy until I unlocked my knees and freed my feet. I’ve got to remember to keep dancing.
So we met at the beach yesterday. It pretty much amounted to an opportunity to get our steps in and to practice casting together. The tide and conditions looked good although the water was a little dirty and kelpy but, for whatever reason, the corbina did not show up. I did get to share everything I know about spotting and presenting a fly to these fish. That didn’t take long. For a couple of hours we walked the beach at dead-low tide which gave us an opportunity to mark the current locations of holes, troughs and rips. We both vented our frustration handling snakey full-sinking flylines and clunky crab flies, sharing our lack of confidence casting them. I think I’d better beat this down once and for all. It seems that I’ve got tracking and power application problems. I imagine if casting these rigs was all there was to flyfishing, I would have already tended to it. Instead I’ve avoided it. Bad. I went out this morning to get more familiar with the problem. What seems to work best is to make sure that the weighted crab is accelerating smoothly in the desired direction behind the rest of the fly-leg BEFORE loop formation. Timing and tracking errors show up starkly with this rig. Practicing it more frequently might help track more precisely. I think timing will be an infinite set of unique solutions depending on line weight, fly weight, fly wind-resistance/drag, and the length of the carry and cast. Varying these parameters is a must.
A New York State of Mind - two million people showed up to the Knicks parade Thursday. I watched streaming and found myself weeping with joy. It’s so crazy. I felt like an idiot. Mayor Mamdani served up an exceptional speech that delighted the city. Alicia Keys was great. It doesn’t feel like a mere sports victory but somehow a unifying event pointing the way to triumph over adversity in a city bucking the forces darkening our mood for a decade. I needed that and I know I’m not alone. Nuff said. I’ll shut up about the Knicks.
I’m off to Florida for five days next week and back to the beach with Ben again on the 29th.
Cheers all,
David Siskind