Tracy&James | Sunday, 25 February 2024
The photo of the day is actually a screen grab of the river Dee height gauge for the last week. Personally, I'd only consider wading in this river when the gauge reads 0.75m or below, and even at that level certain crossing points are out and there's treacherous areas pretty much on all beats (actually I should say more treacherous – the Dee has some challenging wading even when it's at its summer low). So you can see that once again Tracy and I haven't been fishing in the last week as at no point did it drop below my 'worth risking it' threshold. The weather hasn't even been that great for casting either, although I did have a fairly lengthy practice session today.
During the week I posted a recent video of me doing some fly casting on social media. The video was of a training exercise I've determined for myself where I'm trying to re-model my forward cast. To avoid a feeling of leverage or weight, which I felt was triggering me to rotate too early, I was using just the two bottom sections of a fly rod and I was starting with the line laid out behind me on the ground. The intention was to purely concentrate on the type of movements I wanted to make, incorporating a step etc. Even with this slightly bizarre set up I was able to make casts in excess of 105ft, into the backing behind the Ballistic fly line that I was using. It was one such cast that I posted, it was far from perfect in my eyes, and I was grateful to receive some feedback from some great casters who I know can cast in the style I'm trying to emulate. However, there's always one (or two) who chose to comment who clearly have no clue about the subject they believe they are expert in. So, apparently (according to a commentator who was certain of his expertise) my cast was 'inefficient'.
As an aside, I would not recommend my practice set-up to anyone. Because the line is being hauled through a snake ring rather than a tip ring it has been stripped to the core in no time (I've since had to chop the head off and convert it to a shooting head). Also, there is damage to the gel-coat of the rod at the snake guide which is being used as the 'tip' – I'm glad I spotted this before a sawed it down to the carbon. With the weather, my usual casting field is a bit muddy and that, perhaps, made the line a bit more abrasive than it should be.
Anyway, back to my 'inefficient' cast. The cause of the inefficiency, according to the learned commentator, was the fact that I slid my hands together during the repositioning movement, i.e. the step and accompanying translation of the rod into the position where I rotate (still too early in that particular video). Apparently I must be throwing slack into the line at this point and not loading the rod ready for it to propel the line forward – I didn't actually pursue this statement with the internet expert, however I have a strong feeling that if I did I'd find he was a 'big springer' at heart. How he thought I'm going to get slack when I'm literally towing the line by walking (stepping) forward, I have no idea, but he was adamant that all the haul feedback should be completed before the forward cast commences, even though it's physically impossible to do so even if you're a contortionist, which I'm not.
Anyway, below my video I posted another couple of videos from Michal Duzynski and Bernt Johansson, both masters of the stepped style, who if I could get even partially close to copying I'd be happy. Both showed videos were of 45m + casts (with a #5 MED) and both clearly demonstrated that they slide their hands together during the step – like there's any other choice. The internet expert promptly disappeared from the thread, ignoring any calls for him to post a more efficient style. This wasn't the end of it for me though, as I thought about his 'efficiency' statement when casting today (Saturday). I spent a good hour trying to make 120ft casts using as little effort as I could – now this is an exercise that I'd recommend to everyone. Pick a distance that you're comfortable with on the day, probably 10 – 20ft below you're best, and then try and hit that distance with less and less input. After all a crude measurement of efficiency is output (in this case distance) divided by input (a more nebulous feeling of effort, unless you're in a lab where they can probe you for force). It also struck me that all I ever do for distance is train for 'efficiency'. Certainly, at my age, I'm not going to get more powerful, so all I can do is make better use of the power I have. One day I may even get good at it.
I also tested a new S55 shooting head today from Celestial Fly Lines, it was really very good. The line I was casting is for low to no wind days, it's a 75ft head with a taper designed by Steve (and manufactured at his home-based facility in Wales). At 75ft it's one hell of a carry, but super pleasing when mastered, and gave lovely stable loops that turned over well. I'll certainly be adding one to my armoury for the coming BFCC season.
Have a super efficient week,
James.