Viking Lars | Saturday, 23 November 2024
Stance is an important part of both learning to fly cast and optimising your cast. The right stance allows you to watch your back cast and still minimise turning of your torso (so you don’t go out of tracking) and it’ll also allow you to maximise lateral movement of the rod. And just learning to stand properly when casting casually helps a great deal. Stance is important, but also something you might not be able to choose for yourself on the river, on the lake or elsewhere.
One such example is a place called Boat Pool on River Dee. I have a love-hate relationship with that particular pool. I’ve caught salmon there, which of course makes it one of my favourite places to fish. Not least because the place might be some of the worts wading conditions I’ve ever experienced. Big (soccer ball size and up) boulders that are slippery as who-knows-what. In fact I’m certain that NASA could learn something very significant studying these particular rocks. That makes it an obvious challenge to fish in the first place. The boulders characterise much of the pool, also where you can’t wade - where the fish swim. So the fishing is technical with all sorts or swirls and currents running in all directions. Which make catching a salmon there even more satisfying.
But in two days I managed to fall in twice. Maybe even in the very same spot - I’m not sure. Cursing was involved. And I can guarantee you that in that pool and many others on the Dee, you do not get to choose your stance. Then there are other pools where you can walk half a mile on the equivalent of a gravel parking lot.
In the salt you can also have really pleasant wading over compacted sand with patches of weeds and mussel beds, but especially on the small reefs, you can also be walking over slippery boulders. And sometimes, even thought I do what ever I can to avoid it, you’ll get a foot wedged between two rocks. Whether you use that to take a cast or not is up to yourself - I rarely do. Being stuck in any way is bad as you can’t compensate if you lose your balance.
I’m always very cognisant of my stance when practising, but I also practice in awkward stances - every once in a while.
For instance it’s very nice to be able to turn your feet into the new casting direction when making a spey cast. But it sucks if your spey cast is dependant on that.
We have plenty of snow these days here in the old kingdom, so maybe I should get out and practice casting, standing on ice?
Have a great weekend!
Lars
PoD: Mill Pool on the Dee - the easiet, nicest place to wade in the world. Arriving here, just before the bend, I've walked maybe 3-400 yeards on nice gravel.