Sometimes you are the problem

At the old AATF shop, Brian O'Keefe who was the SA rep Beck then did a cast well over 130' with ease, even with our crapy beat up demo lines with a 5wt.

Back yard, @alpinetrout, Ryan Davey and others had many a fun time behind the shop casting! The shit backyard would pull off...
 
Tonight's practice 90 degrees no wind. Lots of casts at 100 feet
Best casts 109, 108,107 and several at 103 a few of the casts had the leader not piled up
Would have been 110-122.

5 mph tail wind came up the last few minutes it hurt distance by destroying my back cast.
The idea that a tailwind helps you cast further? Myth busted. Might help with shorter heavier heads but certainly not with the MED.
 
Porter2 said:
So if this makes any sense or not. I have a sage 691 TCR. Currently use two lines on it. Some older Rio Grande style 240 grain Wf that they don’t make any more and a Airflo beach clear intermediate 7W 265 grain head.

In the Puget sound I kinda do a 10 -12- 2pm casting circle then move up or down the beach 10 -15 yards and repeat. Always use a strip basket. Start short and work my way out. So think 40-60-80 feet at each clock position then move on. So any ways a long way to getting to short point. Sometimes when I don’t give a shit (and I have line in my stripping basket) I make a cast not really caring and with less effort the line just shoots out way beyond what I intended. Thinking I’m going for 60 it’s just goes all out to 80+. And I go 😮. So guess what I’m saying is sometimes relaxing and let the tools do the work is better than trying to muscle out casts. Technique and skill.. I don’t really have either but sometimes I accidentally stumble into it and then the casts are amazing and so easy 🤩

If I could only repeat in a consistent basis I would be a much better fly fisherman.
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Yes laying off that last 10% and just letting the tools do their job makes the biggest difference.
What i find when I give that extra 10% I end up pulling the rod across my body slightly and it leads a big left hook and an 80 foot cast
 
G_Smolt said:
The biggest knock on DT for distance is drag, in the form of air resistance on a fat loop edge AND a fat, heavy line being pulled thru the guides. Another knock is the belly weight of the line typically causes rebound issues on the stops, leading to line harmonics that dissipate cast energy. If you could aerialize the entire 90' line it would travel quite far, but the last knock is a 5wt DT line weighs in the neighborhood of 420gr, which would require the power of a 12wt to impart energy to the line.

The line Rob is casting (SA MED) is the "gold standard" for angler's distance and seatrout distance competition worldwide. If the DT was a better option, someone would be using it, which they haven't for about 50 years.
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Fair enough. There’s been a drift here that’s odd to me as I simply made a suggestion based on Rob’s original post; his distance casting was off for whatever reason which we were invited to discuss, likely environmental but who knows. IMO a line is close to being as important as the rod. User is first. Conditions too.

I’m bemused by it all but good luck Rob, I hope you can figure it out and consistently hit 115’ + When you do, pls tell us the secret….

Dave
 
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@Rob Allen - Question: did you happen to mark the end of the rear taper, and how much overhang are you using?
The looooong rear taper of the MED (and the AirFlo Distance Pro) can be easy to miss in regards to the running line junction , and if you have too much overhang it definitely causes loop collapse at the very end of the cast. In some cases, even a few feet is "too much overhang".
 
G_Smolt said:
@Rob Allen - Question: did you happen to mark the end of the rear taper, and how much overhang are you using?
The looooong rear taper of the MED (and the AirFlo Distance Pro) can be easy to miss in regards to the running line junction , and if you have too much overhang it definitely causes loop collapse at the very end of the cast. In some cases, even a few feet is "too much overhang".
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Excellent question.
Though in competition you have to usr a line that has not been indexed for practice i have it marked at around 61 feet this os where I pick up from and then it's marked at 78 feet and this is where I shoot from.. both marked used at the rod tip. My casting has become more consistent after marking but I need to learn to feel that during competition.
 
Yeah, marking lines for comp is Taboo, but I've seen dudes "kink" or otherwise mark a line so you can feel it...more on the accuracy side than the distance side.

At any rate, I would hold the 78' mark around the first stripping guide and see how that shoots, then play around with it from there.
 
G_Smolt said:
Yeah, marking lines for comp is Taboo, but I've seen dudes "kink" or otherwise mark a line so you can feel it...more on the accuracy side than the distance side.

At any rate, I would hold the 78' mark around the first stripping guide and see how that shoots, then play around with it from there.
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In lots of competitions guys are using up to 11 weight rods to get their distances i am committed to using a 9 ft 5wt. And I'll use a brand new line out of the box. If I get good enough for it to matter I might cut off the front loop and do a blind splice but no other modifications. I only want the score I earn. Not because of some work around of the rules
 
Sometimes, I'm not the problem.
Most of the time, I am.
🙂

On slow winter days with the 2 hander I'll screw around and distance cast, mighty good waste of time and energy.
 
Hit 115 tonight. The prairie grass out here in goldendale is hell on flylines though.
Bought a new line Tuesday, got about 10 hours on it and I've already picked it to the core just behind the loop.
 
Rob Allen said:
In lots of competitions guys are using up to 11 weight rods to get their distances i am committed to using a 9 ft 5wt. And I'll use a brand new line out of the box. If I get good enough for it to matter I might cut off the front loop and do a blind splice but no other modifications. I only want the score I earn. Not because of some work around of the rules
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It’s not a work around of the rules. The head over lines a 5 weight. Of course, most fast action 5 wts are actually more like true 6 or 7 weights.
 
Chris Bellows said:
It’s not a work around of the rules. The head over lines a 5 weight. Of course, most fast action 5 wts are actually more like true 6 or 7 weights.
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I was referring to the indexing of the line via kinking it as was suggested previously.
 
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