What do you need to improve and what are you doing about it? We all ask questions about this or that technique. I would guess the majority of the time it gets filed it in the grey matter and we go out and fish.
I am looking to improve my casting skills. First by becoming more conscious of my errors, both the results and the flaws that cause them. As some have mentioned bad habits are very hard to break. What am I trying to fix, Single spey I “aussie” it per Simon’s description. With a dry line (XLT) and a 17-20’ leader I am pretty good with 75’ out the tip top (waded knee deep). After that I “aussie style” the casts. Single spey with along belly line, heavy tip and large fly also creates issues. Become patient and roll cast to the surface. Right shoulder double spey, long belly line, heavy tip same large fly. On this the problem is a bloody L on casts beyond 80’. I can eliminate the Bloody L by shooting more line I just don’t think I should have to strip that extra 10-15 ft.
On thing I really need to get over is a very vertical casting stroke. I need to flatten it out. I guess I will make this my number one.
I also need to go back and review some of Dana’s articles as they have provided insight in the past and are worth th eprice of admission.
What are you looking to improve on and what are you doing about it?
Interesting question--I look forward to seeing what other people have to say.
I'm working to improve 2 things:
1. I have a tracking problem--my rod tip doesn't travel in a straight line. This is a problem on all my right shoulder casts. (It may be partly an over-rotation problem, as discussed in a recent thread; I have the same problem on longer casts with my single hand rods.) The rest of my casting problems don't matter too much until I get this fixed. To correct it, the best thing for me is to go back and forth between overhead and switch casts. I "groove" the stroke overhead, and then I am good on about 4 out of 5 switch casts for awhile. When it goes bad, I switch the practice back to overhead for a couple minutes, and start the switch cast practice again. Credit goes to Klem for helping me with this.
2. I want to learn to cast left hand up. Unfortunately, my cross-hand single is my most consistent cast, so my incentive is weak, until I correct my other problems, which leads me back to #1.
Being predominately right handed has led me down the road to using alot of cross body casts which can be very effective especially where distance is concernd. Problem is the left hand up is not up to snuff with the right hand up so I decided it was time to correct this and not use cross body casts as a crutch. Things are coming along pretty good right now, but I sure wish I would have worked on this in the beginning but I was to busy fishing to really work on it and correct it. Now when I get the chance to work with other casters I encourage them to work on using thier off hand up on the rod.
I have mainly been focusing on my long line work. I also have been messing around with left hand up. The funny thing is when I cast left hand up off of my left shoulder I suck.
When I cast left hand up off of my right shoulder( cross body) I look like a champ!
Weird.
Casting left hand up, left shoulder as well as I do right hand right shoulder. I find that trying leads to the discovery of many mistakes that I do right handed. Left side teaching the right side to be better, so to speak. It's weird. Either that or I have a dual personality disorder.
It is not weird. The cross-body cast is just way harder to screw up. The physical limit that the opposite hand has in how far it can drift back while forming the d-loop is the key. Just take a sec and model the motion - you can't get your left hand much past your right ear. This is the perfect stop position for forming the d-loop. As well, the cross hand position also encourages the use of the bottom hand on the forward stroke (especially when it is your dominant right hand). So yes - it is not surprising that left hand up, off your right shoulder is a good cast.
This switch or cross debate is just so speycasting :Eyecrazy:. We get all hung up about what is "right" and what is "wrong" - really all that matters is what works and what you want to do. If someone wants to cast with their opposite hand up - cool - my advice is to start doing it before you fool with cross-handed stuff (you may never be able to switch) of course my point is why bother switching if you are rocking out casts cross-handed?
On the other hand, if you are really into casting you may want to learn to switch hands - just for the pleasure of doing it - that is cool too. When I watch Brian's beautiful casting I can see why he might want to learn left hand up - he could use a new challenge - plus at least for a while his casts would look like most of the rest of us :smokin:.
However, if one's reason for trying to switch to off-hand up is that they think they aren't doing it right - or someone told them they weren't doing it right then they shouldn't bother changing. If it ain't broke - don't fix it!
Okay - now it's time to ride off and find some long belly vs short belly discussion...PKK where are you?
Jeff, you fish just fine! I can think of others I would rather follow through a run. Actually I think you kick my butt on the Rhonde. I think it is too much time spent on the NFU.
I want to improve my casting to improve my presentation. Get the fly set and fishing faster more consistent and enjoy it even more.
Oh, I guess I misunderstood at first. I was going to say, nothing, I'm perfect, and getting better. However, that doesn't apply to my miserable spey casting. I need/want to learn to spey cast. I am poetry in motion when casting single handed rods, but when I first picked up a two-hander, I didn't have convenient access to learning how to put it to good use. So I putzed, and kept putzing, and probably still do. However, I decided to improve by first attending the Spey Clave on the Sky last winter. Then bought the video of the Sandy Spey Clave. Then attended a couple of Aaron's Saturday on the Snoq sessions. I'm much improved since before the Sky experience, but I've got a long way to go and plan to thoroughly enjoy the journey.
When I watch Brian's beautiful casting I can see why he might want to learn left hand up - he could use a new challenge - plus at least for a while his casts would look like most of the rest of us
Just go fishing!!!!! thats my goal right now, get ahead on a few projects then hit it hard for three months. Kush, as you said yourself the prettiest cast in the world is the one followed by a huge jolt at the end of your line. Thats really what it's all about :smokin:
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