I am wondering if anyone can give my dad advice on what he may be doing wrong with his casting. There are two main problems and he thinks they may be related. Firstly, when the cast lands, the flies very rarely land in a straight line in front of his fly line. The line almost always has a bend to the left and the flies often land to the right of the flie line rather than extended in front of a straight flyline. The other problem is 'twisting' of the flyline over the period of a few casts. The loose line which should be shot out tends to gather twists and then tangles up, these twists are almost impossible to remove without pulling the line out and untwisting it by hand (which takes ages). We have been fishing for about 16 months and this seems to be a new problem which has developed. He is right handed and usually uses a fast actioned 7 weight rod. Any advice would be most appreciated.

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Regards,

Calum

The flies landing to the side of the line is likely to be a tracking error i.e. the back and front casts are not in line. There's another thread in the casting area (How does Bad Tracking figure in Distance casting?) that discusses tracking and some exercises to try and improve it (practicing on a marked straight line).

As for the twists - could be a number of reasons, it could even be linked to the one above if the tracking is bad enough. Hauling in a circular manner can also cause twists.

James

Wow, that was fast! Thanks for that, we will look out the information on tracking. To be honest this is something we have never heard of but he must be introducing circles into his casting somehow or other. Thanks again.

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Regards,

Calum

Get a lesson with a good instructor.

He will be able to diagnose and rectify casting faults.

It should also make him a better caster...money well spent.

Is he using a tapered leader, or straight length of nylon?

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www.paypalsucks.com

HI Callum, First of all I agree with Ryan , quickest way to fix this is to get a lesson.

But to help along here are a couple of the most common faults I see which cause in the problems you have mentioned.

1. As James said, the fly landing to the right of the fly line is a tracking fault. Remedy take the rod forward in a dead straight line, so that the line passes over the rod tip.

2 Twists in the line. Taking the rod backwards in a crescent shape rather than a straight line can cause the line to twist. Remedy same as above.

3. leader landing in a heap. Hmm can be caused by a number of things the two most common are to much power causing the line to stretch then snap back at the end of the cast and secondly casting to high above the horizon:this is easier to show than Explain but here goes, If the horizon is 0 degrees then I suspect that the angle of your dads cast id probably closer to 30 degrees. So essentially he is doing what is known as a pile cast.


3a. Another option is that he is lowering his rod to early collapsing the loop before it has unfurled
All that said I think that three faults are compensations for the fact that he is not applying energy to the rod correctly so has a tendency to create tailing loops and is trying to get around this by

1. keeping the line away from the rod tip during the casting stroke and
2. keep the upper and lower leg of the loop away from each other as the cast unfurls.


Of course all this is pure speculation with out seeing him cast.

Frank.

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Frank Williams APGAI

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Excellent thread. Don't use a single hander all that much, but have had fly lands left/right and the piled leader on many occasions (even with a 2-hander) when I'm trying 'to reach out and touch somebody.' (Steelhead)

fae

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Freda,

I am doing exactly the same with the same symptoms and same results. I have had some instruction and Pete is saying that I coming way off line.

I know how to correct it i.e. pulling way in a straight line, but reality is quite difficult correct as it feels so awkward.

Andy

and have no reason to doubt, that what works/DOESN'T work with one hander casting carries over (not so) very nicely into the 2-hander world.

Fred

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The line will only go where the tip of the rod point to. If the line is going off to onr side, then it could be that the caster might be holding the rod incorrectly, and causing the tracking to deviate. When placing the hand on the grip, make sure that the thumb is lying on top of the grip, exactly opposite to the reel seat, and make sure that the reel is alway facing the direction of the cast. If not, the rod is being cast slightly sideways, and the spine of the rod can cause it to naturally flex along the line of the sine, thus giving a slight deviation. It's not difficult to correct, once you know what the cause is.

Thank you all for your advice, there is some very useful information and things to work on but I agree, he needs a lesson... He is reading this thread and has already recognised a number of things that he does - the reel is sometimes off to one side while he casts and he does often hit the flyline with his flies due to a tailing loop. He usually uses a single diameter fluorocarbon leader, does that make much of a difference?

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Regards,

Calum