Gary Meyer | Tuesday, 16 May 2017
Its that time of year when the saltwater South Florida fly angler’s fancy turns to the poon (that’s code for big tarpon). There is plenty of chatter as to where they are, which way they are heading, water conditions, and which is the fly du jour. Its all kind of mystical and exciting, but for the casting instructor there arises a whole ‘nother set of challenges.
Now, it seems everyone want to improve their casting with the big rods commonly employed for this fishery. It doesn’t matter that they waited until the last minute, nor apparently is it important that their casting with the usual size rods isn’t quite what it should be either. Surely, all it takes is a few minor tweaks and they will be accurately presenting tarpon flies on long leaders to distances in excess of 60 feet from the boat.
Every casting instructor is familiar with the beginner’s undisciplined wrist. Many anglers who graduate to flyfishing from conventional gear initially try to cast with a stationary hand and a whole bunch of wrist action. We are talking zero translation, no body motion, and they have absolutely no idea what it means to haul. About the only thing the line hand does is let go of the line way too soon.
Sadly and unfortunately the non-beginner quite often has not completely fixed those errors unless they have spent time with a good instructor and much more time practicing on their own. They can flop a Seaducer on an 8wt far enough to catch a redfish, but pay no attention to the tailing loop and the collapsed leader. And after that they are usually rather proud.
Put a 12wt tarpon rod, with a tactical tarpon line, and a Tibor Pacific reel in their hand and they are completely unprepared for the weight of the outfit, not to mention how much energy and coordination it takes to simply move the line and load the rod. You want to see a complete failure of the wrist?
I quite commonly see a translating hand combined with rear folding wrist. There are reasons for the stiff butts on those rods, and the large diameter arbors, and the massive yards of backing, but luckily many folks are beginning to realize that most of it is overkill. Until they do, however, the sheer mass of the rod and line taxes the physicality of the average sized angler.
You are supposed to save and maximize wrist rotation at the end of the stroke right? Yeah, well… no, if your wrist collapses as you begin your stroke the line does not move and the rod does not load. Unless you are a weight lifting steroid monster you are not going to have the strength in one wrist to overcome those initial inadequacies of technique.
I spent some time this last weekend at a friend’s house, having lunch, drinking beer and BSing. I was not surprised to eventually find ourselves in his back yard trying a couple of his tarpon outfits to see which of his new rods were “the best”. The truth was all of his equipment was more than adequate. The biggest problem was the fact that he had never cast a rod heavier than an 8 wt. A modification of his grip, and concentration on his wrist gave him quite a bit of improvement and lots of inducement to continue to practice.
Some day he will understand that casting this equipment is done with the whole body, not just a few of the parts, but at least now he knows it takes a strong controlled wrist.