David Siskind | Sunday, 22 December 2024
I’m a little confused about The Bump and am writing as an enthusiastic fisher person and fly casting student. I’m not sure about the physics of this whole thing, especially around the two phenomena of wave propagation from acceleration to a sudden stop and smooth acceleration of rod rotation to add momentum to the fly leg. A couple of weeks ago in Malaysia I got to watch Paul Arden demonstrate his snakehead shot. Preparing for the shot he shook out 60’ or so of line with a series of pickup and laydown casts. The ease and smoothness of these strokes and relentless progress of the relatively open loops were eye opening. Going through my drills I had recently developed a “swing thought” around visualizing the rod as a lever moving as a radius of an imaginary circle. Picking a target behind me I had attempted to “ring the bell” at the target and then aggressively rotating the rod either to a stop point or without a stop all the way through to the ground (I was practicing in a field). As long as I maintained acceleration throughout the stroke I formed nice fast moving loops. I imagined that the backcast and forward cast were tangent to this circle. This worked better in practice than on the water. Paul’s stroke was far more languid. He suggested that I was applying way more power than necessary. His visual cue is to rotate smoothly, applying power when the rod is vertical, or past vertical, in his peripheral vision (I hope I got that right). When Paul observed my stroke he urged me to rotate later. And even later than later. It was hard for me to reconcile my swing thought with a smooth application of power AFTER the rod is vertical going forward. It seemed that the key moment had passed. I couldn’t let go of that feeling and bumped (there's The Bump) the rod to catch up. Over and over again. I want to get rid of the bump and may have solved the problem by visualizing the chord of the arc of the bending rod as the radius. So I work with my perception of this chord rather than the rigid extension from the rod handle and butt. Of course there are many problems with all of these models that I keep in my head. Here I’m neglecting translation or any up and down movement of the casting hand whether due to arm movement, body rotation or stride. But for me it creates a “swing thought.” The rest is for another day. None of my swing thoughts work for very long and have to be modified and eventually abandoned. I wonder if I’m over thinking.
After returning from my week on the Battleship with Paul, I’ve settled in to check out what I missed on my local waters. It looks like the beach will fish well after the NW swell calms down a little. There are still halibut inshore. I know because I saw a nice one leap clear of the breaking waves a couple of days ago. I’m always surprised to see it but they are pretty impressive leapers. I assumed that the fish was hunkered down somewhere near where I saw it but covered the water as well as I could without any result. I probably don’t have the knowledge to pursue them effectively. I only started fishing the beach two years ago, focusing mostly on the summer-time corbina feeding on sandcrabs in the wash and caught my first halibut a month ago while fishing for perch. But I’ll get there I think. The river was no better. I walked for miles. There were no visible carp. No one moving, pushing water, nothing. This was the second such outing in a row. The water was cool and I believe the fish must be laying up in the few deep slots and under the remaining mats of aquatic weeds along the banks. I know someone is there because the herons, cormorants, and ospreys are still hanging out. They know what they’re doing. It could be the cold nights (dropping down to low 40s). Maybe it’ll be different in the afternoon, I fished only from dawn to noon.
David Siskind