Sometimes you are the problem

[Paige]

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...

 

[Rob Allen]

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.

 

[Rob Allen]

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.

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

 

[Dave Boyle]

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.

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