Tracy&James | Wednesday, 21 May 2025
I took the cast off my hand/wrist this week in the hope that I'd quickly be able to get back into my casting, but how wrong I was. At the end of our trip, once the pain had subsided, I had switched back to casting right handed, despite only having two fingers and a thumb free to grip the rod. I actually found that wrapping my 2nd finger and thumb around the rod, whilst having the index finger pointing up the blank, offered me the opportunity to make a half decent cast – mainly because I could haul normally with my left. As I was already back to casting right handed I expected things to get back to normal pretty quickly once the movement restrictions forced by the rigid medical cast was removed, but if anything my casting has got worse.
I've found that I have very little mobility in my fingers, even the ones that weren't broken. This is to the point that I can't make a fist at all, although my movement has improved over the week to the point where I can touch my thumb against the tip of all of my fingers, however the last two are a struggle. It turns out that the contrived two finger grip that was sort of working whilst on holiday doesn't work now that the bulky medical cast is missing. I simply cannot grip the slim handle of a fly rod right now – I can just about get my fingers wrapped around something slightly smaller than a tennis ball. As such I've had no choice other than to try and improve my left handed cast.
During a practice session at the weekend, where Tracy was seeing how little power she needed to cast 100 feet, I measured how far I could cast left handed. Actually I got quite into this, it was like the early days of my distance casting journey when personal bests seemed to come every weekend. Anyway, it turns out I'm a 90ft plus caster, at best, with my left – as predicted in previous FPs. I think 100ft should come fairly quickly, however I'm learning a lot about what it is like to be a beginner caster again.
Firstly everything feels weird! When I hold a fly rod in my right hand it feels as if it's supposed to be there. I'm in total control – if someone says 'try gripping the rod in a different way' I just do it, if someone says 'make a cast like this' then it's the same, nothing feels that out of the ordinary – I can just do stuff even if it's new (not that anything is new). The contrast with my left is startling. The rod just doesn't feel like it belongs there, and all the casting movements feel awkward, not least the haul where I've no idea where I'm supposed to be going. Even the most basic things like how I hold the rod needs thought – I know that for the length of line I'm carrying I should be able to use the lightest of grips, yet I find myself with a white knuckle grip of death. When I tell myself to slacken this off, I lose all control of the rod.
I now think back to the amount of times I've told improvers to soften their hand at BFCC meetings without actually understanding what they are feeling. With my normal, right handed cast, this would make absolutely no difference to my ability to make a cast, yet with my left it's the difference between making a fly cast and producing an abomination of a loop. In fact just today (as I write) I had to dry the corks of the rod I was using to practice due to sweat from over-gripping, all the time knowing I should barely have any compression at all.
So I think I will go into the new BFCC season with a newly developed understanding of what people are going through when trying to improve. I will keep that in mind when offering any advice to anyone asking about improving their distance. That said, I'm not sure that anyone will be asking me once they see me coming last in the competition events this year.
I'm planning to practice again today (Wednesday) in preparation for this weekend's BFCC kick-off. I'm hoping that I may break 100ft as there is a little bit of wind forecast, I'll probably stay out at least until I beat my left handed PB though. The first BFCC meeting of the year is near Bath in Somerset, there will be the usually top class instruction (which I'll make use of myself) plus the seven competition events. So if you're in the area you really should think about coming along, it's fantastic value for as much casting tuition or competition (or both) as can be fitted into a day.
Hope you're having a great week, James.