Sometimes you are the problem

Rob Allen

Rob Allen

Life of the Party
I have always thought I was a good caster and have been told so by many industry professionals.

This spring i borrowed from the Sage rep ( thank you Eric) bought the correct line, the SA Mastery expert distance line and started practicing and in the unsettled spring air was reaching pretty decent distances my best casts being 115 feet. I returned the borrowed rod and a couple months later I bought that rod the Sage power R8 590. I've had it a couple weeks and have been practicing but now in summer I am dealing with dead calm air in the mornings and my casts are collapsing at 90 feet. Literally like their hitting an invisible brick wall and falling out of the sky. I am still casting 105 feet of line but 15 feet of it are all bunched up at the end.
Overcoming 50 years of muscle memory to do it right is nearly impossible. I'm just whining because my ego is bruised and I hate failing, which seems to occur more and more as I age.

Anyway my 125 foot target is a long ways away.
 
I’m right there with you. I don’t get as much casting practice now that I have a couple youngins, and I’m hitting that same brick wall at around 80 feet and dumping a pile of line at the end of my cast.

No idea what I’m doing differently. Now and then I’ll really launch one perfectly and have no idea why it worked that particular time.
 
Rob Allen said:
I have always thought I was a good caster and have been told so by many industry professionals.

This spring i borrowed from the Sage rep ( thank you Eric) bought the correct line, the SA Mastery expert distance line and started practicing and in the unsettled spring air was reaching pretty decent distances my best casts being 115 feet. I returned the borrowed rod and a couple months later I bought that rod the Sage power R8 590. I've had it a couple weeks and have been practicing but now in summer I am dealing with dead calm air in the mornings and my casts are collapsing at 90 feet. Literally like their hitting an invisible brick wall and falling out of the sky. I am still casting 105 feet of line but 15 feet of it are all bunched up at the end.
Overcoming 50 years of muscle memory to do it right is nearly impossible. I'm just whining because my ego is bruised and I hate failing, which seems to occur more and more as I age.

Anyway my 125 foot target is a long ways away.
Click to expand...
when I was living coastside in the bay area and first got into fly fishing, dropped by the Golden Gate Casting Club one weekend afternoon to watch a competition.
Everything with them seemed to be about the backcast, just whipping the hell out of it, turning to watch the backcast to the very apex of the unfold and then giving it the double haul gun...impressive as hell, and watching them did absolutely zero to improve my own distance casting.
 
Don't know how hot it is where you are casting but the heat may be having an impact. I know in my fishing in the last month, when my cold water lines have been sitting in the hot sun on a boat deck or in my fly line tamer for a bit the first couple casts feel terrible and the line will actually squeak a bit going out the guides.

Another trick is take out a 7wt with the 5 wt line. You can correct me if I'm wrong but I think in the trout distance competition they are only limited to the 5 wt line and can use any 9' rod. Makes sense to line up since you are carrying so much more line in the air and the 5wt head is 300 grains.

If you really want to feel terrible, try doing your distance with a 5wt fiberglass rod ;)
 
Can totally identify....

When I pick up one of my graphite (old Dan Craft blank) 7wts I can usually cast the entire line (helps when you cut it in half)...

No, seriously though, I tend to max out at 90' with the above rod, 80' really consistently. It's always about 10' less with my glass heavyweights (for the most part, there is one exception where it's much closer) because whatever hitch I have in my casting stroke is amplified due to the necessity of being ultra smooth with your acceleration with glass especially.

The nice thing (for me), I can't remember the last time I had to make a cast longer than 40' in the fishing I do. Especially for capr where I'm essentially just casting the leader.
 
Mossback said:
T


Pro tip right there...

😀
Click to expand...
like, subscribe, and follow for more tips....




too bad FlyFishDan didn't stick around long enough to add his input, we could all benefit...
 
I have found mid morning - early afternoon to be the best. Dead calm air is the worst. At 8 am i might max out at 90 feet but at noon the swirling 1-4 mph i can reach 105.
With a 9 ft 5 wt and the SA MED. Afternoon is usually blowing 20 mph. So no casting then.
 
Have you tried casting a double taper instead? Shooting heads 'die' once you have the head out at 35-40' and the rod can't be loaded any more. F tapers are designed to make us all 'good' distance casters to ~90' if you are fairly competent, no disrespect meant BTW. A DT doesn't have that short head 'problem' and you can keep loading the rod with more head/line=weight to shoot more unlike an FT and then shoot all that.

I recall a buddy telling me a story of Steve Rajeff, who knows a thing or 2 re distance casting :cool: where he'd prefer to use a DT for distance re a shooting head line because of just this issue. It's a length to weight thing...

Dave
 
Dave Boyle said:
Have you tried casting a double taper instead? Shooting heads 'die' once you have the head out at 35-40' and the rod can't be loaded any more. F tapers are designed to make us all 'good' distance casters to ~90' if you are fairly competent, no disrespect meant BTW. A DT doesn't have that short head 'problem' and you can keep loading the rod with more head/line=weight to shoot more unlike an FT and then shoot all that.

I recall a buddy telling me a story of Steve Rajeff, who knows a thing or 2 re distance casting :cool: where he'd prefer to use a DT for distance re a shooting head line because of just this issue. It's a length to weight thing...

Dave
Click to expand...
Competitions require the use of the MED. I have however fished DTs my whole life
 
Last edited:
Rob Allen said:
in the unsettled spring air was reaching pretty decent distances my best casts being 115 feet. I returned the borrowed rod and a couple months later I bought that rod the Sage power R8 590. I've had it a couple weeks and have been practicing but now in summer I am dealing with dead calm air in the mornings and my casts are collapsing at 90 feet.
Click to expand...
If the main difference from your previous casting to now, was wind vs no wind, a tail wind would have added distance,
 
Otter said:
If the main difference from your previous casting to now, was wind vs no wind, a tail wind would have added distance,
Click to expand...
Even wind that doesn't move the flag? Even when you cast straight into it.

Non moving are creates it's own anti casting phenomena. Dead calm air isn't neutral.
 
Dave Boyle said:
Have you tried casting a double taper instead? Shooting heads 'die' once you have the head out at 35-40' and the rod can't be loaded any more. F tapers are designed to make us all 'good' distance casters to ~90' if you are fairly competent, no disrespect meant BTW. A DT doesn't have that short head 'problem' and you can keep loading the rod with more head/line=weight to shoot more unlike an FT and then shoot all that.

I recall a buddy telling me a story of Steve Rajeff, who knows a thing or 2 re distance casting :cool: where he'd prefer to use a DT for distance re a shooting head line because of just this issue. It's a length to weight thing...

Dave
Click to expand...
If you think a DT line will out-perform a WF line in a distance competition, I have a bridge in New York I'd like to sell to you...
 
G_Smolt said:
If you think a DT line will out-perform a WF line in a distance competition, I have a bridge in New York I'd like to sell to you...
Click to expand...
I don't know, I'd heard Steve Rajeff had noted a DT gave him a longer cast, and who I am to knock that? Short of using a 2 hander or switch o/head my max is around 90' with either WF or DT. WF is easier to shoot quicker but I dunno re DT, I have never really seen anyone consistently bang out massive casts while fishing, even on the beaches. Spey of course is another story.

Dave
 
I was taught to play pool by traveling salesman when I was about 10yrs old, he used a broom stick and still kicked our butts!
 
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.
 
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.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top