Pushme Pullyou

Joan Wulff describes the power snap (see Joan Wulff - Lesson 1: The Casting Stroke 3:19) using the screen door handle analogy, gripping the door handle and pressing the latch button with the thumb. It’s a positive movement exerting thumb pressure on the rod handle in the service of rod rotation. Paul in his Fly Casting Masterclass The Grip part 2. describes a chain of movements leading to a wrist flop (from flexion to extension) derived from transferring energy through the body from the ground up - blocking movements along the chain energizing progressively toward the rod hand.

I’ve often trained to ingrain the flop described by Paul but find myself reverting to the more forced power stroke described by Joan as my grip finds its way to the top of the rod handle. When fishing I’m less aware of what I’m doing but know that my practices have led to a bothersome tendonitis around my thumb. It doesn’t bother my fishing much but its impact on  opening jars, for instance, has left me feeling less than manly. For me the flop is a more graceful, effortless and intuitive way to go. So in the context of training my snakehead shots I worked this morning on ingraining the flop. I practiced it by loosening my grasp using only my ring and pinky fingers to hold the rod while barely resting my thumb, pointer and middle finger on the grip - letting the rod rattle around a bit. Without the "strong" fingers bossing the rod around, tracking seemed to improve and any early bumps generating tails were nearly impossible. My stroke was all pull. I figure another two weeks of this practice will get me where I need to be.

Another problem is how to aim the loop. I need the line to lay out straight right to the fly. I find it natural to imagine, like a dog owner flinging tennis balls with one of those ubiquitous launchers, that the fly, like the tennis ball, will go where it’s flung - that I am casting the fly leg which is the only leg at release. But it ain’t so. The fly ends up in line with the rod leg - a full loop width displaced from the fly leg. The line lays out where the rod leg takes it NOT where the fly leg originally sends it. This is obviously true going back as well. A simplified model of what’s going on looks like my Front Page Title Sketch. I believe that this is why the Chris Korich “up-down” stroke works at all, throwing a loop forward while imparting a downward stroke, even when casting short lines that don’t succumb much to gravity. Somehow I have to integrate loop size into my sense of where and how to aim. I think Paul uses the torque twist aiming the rod at the target. I'll try that out.

SexyLoops Rod Tube: This morning at the park I witnessed a guy with two terriers failing to pick up a fresh turd. A nice lady, also a dog walker, called him out and he went ballistic, shouting and threatening her. I defended her by echoing her sentiments and he stalked off furious and disappeared. Five minutes later I saw him returning, steam blowing out of his ears, clearly coming at me. I backed him down twenty feet away with my rod tube in hand. Much better than those cheap fabric cases that Redington sells. Poor guy was clearly off his meds.

David Siskind