Had an interesting weekend...two days fishing in Perthshire and Saturday squeezed a rod on the Tummel in around a spey casting lesson from Ally Gowans.

As I am a self-taught salmon fishing duffer got him to 'look over' my overhand cast to begin with. His face was a picture of despair and he spent half the lesson trying to re-teach me to cast . I am a big chap (19 stone prop forward) and could get an alright line out but the effort was leaving me aching after a day's fishing. I had some shocking bad faults that were being masked by brute force.

By the end of the lesson I was getting out almost as much line but spey casting while only using finger pressure to hold a 15ft rod.

I am sure some of these faults spilled into my trout casting and am aware that I cannot get out as much line as I used to when I fished most days of the summer...had foolishly assumed it was my new set-up.

Long story short, sure the vast majority of us have developed bad traits and next lesson am going to take a trout rod and let him see my normal cast. Amazing how many of us will spend thousands on a year's fishing permits and tackle and not invest anything into fine-tuning the most important part of the equation.

Still a lot to learn / relearn but looking forward to my next salmon fishing trip without the morning after pain.

I agree entirely - it's quite a shock when you come across a good coach for the first time after being self taught. I had arranged a coaching half day each with a friend who hadn't picked up a fly rod before. The idea was to introduce him to casting and me to still water tactics; in the end we both ended up having the same session - for me unlearning what I had taught myself (and it was the brute power bit). I won't say it's brilliant now but we did have anther day with the same coach later in the year and I didn't get the same comments!

Probably well worth a day at the beginning of the season as a tune up and (ideally) to the next stage!
GD

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We come from dust; we return to dust. I'm going to fish

I had a similar epiphany when i went to one of Carl Hutchinsons casting conclaves, i had not been fishing very long but thought i was doing ok, trouble was i was knackered after 45 minutes fishing because i was thrashing so much...

Carl asked me to put out as much line as i could, i did about 12 yards, he took my rod from me and as you say literelly holding the rod in his fingertips he lifted the line i had put out and with the gentlest of flicks laid it back out again... within a day he took me from being a carrot to being able to cast effortlessly, double haul, roll cast , reach cast pretty much the lot, a sound foundation to build up on and the skills to go out there and put a fly over a fish.

The good thing about carls method of teaching is it is very self analytical, if you find your cast has fone to pot then you take it back to the most basic cast possible then build it back up in layers.. genius

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Some of the guys from up my way near newcastle have had the pleasure of Hywel Morgan visiting Higham lakes and helping them out with various casting techniques... I myself have not been able to make any of these sessions, but from the response from the persons who did, they seem to have come home with a greater knowledge of where they were going wrong and how to improve.......

andy