distance phenomenon - when hauling for distance

[Paul Arden]

Bernd,

You don't think that 6 configuration is caused by a transverse wave appearing, either because of the dangle, dolphin nose, or loop lift?

When I watched those videos we took, it seemed to me that in some of them the nose of the loop lifted, and it was the wave that occurred behind the leading edge that caused the collapse. Which I thought was fantastic because it's what we were trying to achieve of course.

Cheers, Paul

[Bernd]

Hi Paul,
I will show you a video when we meet next time. After seing it the cause was absolutely clear to me and now I get it almost straight unrolling. Not in every cast since I now have to train a change in technique first. But it gets significally better and quiet some casts go get "straight". My carry has increased at least a good meter. There is still a compromise to some degree (after changing technique for a better tracking) cause gravity will never allow to be straight but less convex.

Yes, we now had a couple of really straight ones!

Hi Lasse,
yes I tried that. The biggest problem always happens in the moment when I start the rotation of the rod. In that moment the tip starts to cause a redirection of the line just behind the tip.
Now I can adjust my technique to do much better here but still there has to be a compromise to some degree cause I cannot shut down gravity and there will be a line sack on long carries.

We might discuss this in Norway. It is so much harder to explain on the net.
The most interesting part to me was in realizing that the fly-leg slows down at the end of unrolling because the angle between fly-leg and rod-leg increases (which means air resistance/drag increases, too) - like shown in the drawing in post 53.

Now I often can watch a video stop it in the moment the dangle passes the caster and can tell if the line will unroll or not.
What helped me a lot is a) thinking in 3d and b) understanding the line to be a chain of many line parts.
Every part of line will point the direction of accel. for the next part.
Very simple (I know) .
Greets
B

[Bernd]

Bernd,

You don't think that 6 configuration is caused by a transverse wave appearing, either because of the dangle, dolphin nose, or loop lift?

No, the problem is (like described in post 53) that the line end when leaving the dangle (just next to the caster) runs upwards like hell and therefore opens the angle between the fly-leg and rod-leg.
If you look at the picture in post 53 of the caster (second pic) it shows the moment before the end of fly-leg moves up and outwards. In the next moment the whole fly-leg gets out and up. Therefore the air resistance has a much bigger surface to fight against the fly-leg and that is what slows it down too much! Since it gets up AND out, it will go back left at the end again (out right first causes left crossing rod-leg at the end).
Casting without the line hand it is exactly this what makes the differency. The end of fly-leg never goes so strong up and out at the same time.
Therefore is does not slow down so much and it also does not cross back to the left side that much.
I am absolutely sure about this.
The key is in avoiding up and out at the same time in order to keep the legs more "parallel" for a smaller air resistance at the fly-leg = nice unrolling til the end!
Yesterday I was casting with Andrej and he had the fly-leg always kicking a bit to the side on his longest carry (whole fly line).
It was exactly the same reason like described here. After 5 minutes we had it clear and his loops unrolled almost perfectly straight.
Greets
B

[gordonjudd]

In that moment the tip starts to cause a redirection of the line just behind the tip.
and
The key is in avoiding up and out at the same time in order to keep the legs more "parallel" for a smaller air resistance at the fly-leg

Bernd,

It is hard to understand what you are doing to get rid of this redirection without seeing some video, but are you saying that by increasing the bend in the rod at the start of the cast you tend to get rid of the dangle?

Thus, with no dangle there is no rise and over-shoot of the fly leg as it propagates?

I don't think I am understanding "what comes first" in your technique.

Gordy

[Bernd]

Hi Gordy,
yet I did not explain (or try to) what am I doing to avoid the fly-leg to switch over (crossing the rod-leg) to the line hand side at the very end of unrolling.

All I did so far was explaining (or trying to) the cause of the whole problem and what exactly we have to change in order to make it unroll much better.

Here is another pic I made today to show where the problem starts really:



That part of line pointing upwards will make the end of the line moving very fast upwards and it brings the whole fly-leg more and more upwards to the end of unrolling. This way the legs simply spread away of each other. For the fly-leg this means a huge slow down! This is what I see now in a lot of distance shoots. The moment the legs start to spread significally the whole "Thing" slows down like hell. It looks like the fly-leg suddenly runs against a wall sometimes. And in a way it does. It's a wall of air resistance depending on the exact angle of the fly-leg finally.

But now what can I do to make it better?

1. I can adjust my rod hand path in that moment when I start rotation: Simply drop it (let's say rod is in vertical plane) a little. That way the change in direction at the beginning of rotation gets smaller. One way.

2. I can move my tip inwards about some degree BEFORE starting to rotate. That way the redirection does no longer go too much outwards (but still upwards). This easily stops the line end from crossing the rod leg to the line hand side at all. It does not avoid the legs tospread and still slowing down the fly-leg. Anyway this makes the whole process of unrolling look much better.

3. What I see with many distance casters using the open stance: They turn out the rod hand shoulder too much on the forward cast! (upper body rotation in order to get best hauling advantage) This easily results in a huge redirection (tip starts to move outwards significally in the moment they start the rotation).
What we can do here is to move the rod hand out in the back stop position and then move it close to the body in the forwad cast while rotating the upper body. This way the redirection can be reduced significally.

4. Combine the three methods and find your way to get thru the middle of each .

I think the truth is in the middle and everyone has to find his own way how to do it best.
Once the cause is understood it helps a lot to improve the unrolling on distance shoots.

I will try to make another picture to make it more clear.
Greets
Bernd

[Bernd]

1. Shows the typical redirection at the beginning of rotation when having the rod plane tilted to the side. The line end moves (up and) outwards, too and finally moves back left again to cross the rod-leg.

2. Shows the rotation of the upper body and how this results in the rod hand moving outwards. Even if the rod would be vertical (which it never really is) the tip would move outwards again and cause the redirection.

In truth I mostly see 1. and 2. at the same time.

The fact that the back cast for many of us points outwards about some degree makes the redirection even stronger.
But casting with the rod tilted slightly to the side and having the line sack on long carries easily makes it point outwards about some degree.

Hope this makes it more clear.
Pretty difficult to explain in 2d.
Greets
Bernd

p.s.: It's no longer a phenomenon to me now :p even though it may happen still in my casting in some casts (due to a lack of training).

BTW: Why do we need the legs to be "parallel"?
Because this gives lowest air resistance for the fly-leg and this is what helps to secure the fly-leg always being faster than the rod-leg especially for the last unrolling!

[Bernd]

Hope this helps to understand.

Comparing this cast to what happens when not using the line hand for a distance cast, I think the lower line speed will mean less centrifugal forces. Therefore the fly-leg does not get so much up and outwards and the legs simply spread less. So we have less air resistance slowing down the fly-leg and unrolling runs perfectly well til the end of the cast. This is what I see in my videos.

Greets
Bernd

[gordonjudd]

Bernd,
Thank you for your last two posts and especially the frame grabs.

This picture made it clear to me what you have found, and I can see why the fly end of the line is going to have a big form drag component. That will be the case even at this point since the line has a large frontal area when the orientation of some of the line in the fly leg is nearly perpendicular to the direction the loop is propagating.

Do you think that rotating the wrist during the stroke can accentuate this curved tip path tracking problem as well? It looks to me the rightward movement of the tip in this cast was cause by canting the wrist and changing the casting plane more than rotation, but I have trouble with tracking when I rotate my wrist as well.

Thus I live with no wrist rotation which reduces the amount of tip travel I get compared to 6-7m path distances a good distance caster can produce.

Gordy

[Bernd]

Hi Gordy,
there are always pros and cons in every move we do...
In frame 2. you can find the caster was aiming for a delay in rotation by using the wrist here.
Same cast with a firm wrist will mean little more early starting rotation = less tight loops due to more covex tip path in the beginning of rotation.
Delaying rotation makes it better!

The key to improve here was to keep the rod hand further out in the moment the forward cast starts or to sweep in the tip a bit when starting the forward cast. Both will keep the tip from moving too much to the right.
One may also adjust the rod hand path in the beginning of rotation. Let's say the rod plane would be exactly vertical (never happens but makes it easier to understand what I mean). If the rod hand will be dropped when rotaion starts the tip may almost be kept along a straight line (instead of starting on a convex path). BUT due to this the upward trajectory gets way more difficult to hit.

So to me the truth is in the middle of all this and we have to find our own way how to adjust all detail movements.

For sure I personally and the caster in the picture, too we both have a far better control about the final unrolling now.
Understanding all this was a significant step further to me.

Greets
Bernd

p.s.: Paul, now I can sleep well again. :p

[sushiyummy]

Thanks for the last series of photos, Bernd. I too can see what you are getting it.

Is it possible that this overshoot is caused by 1) a tilted rod plane (canting of rod so fly legs don't catch each other or even the rod), and 2) action-reaction phenomena (fly leg crosses over a 'neutral plane' between fc and bc)? It doesn't help when the tip scribes a C path when looking down vertically.

[Bernd]

Sushy,
that makes sense to me, yes.

This video is a perfect example of the lines end changing it's direction significally when passing the dangle.

http://vimeo.com/5395240

Watch the final back and delievery cast.
The final back cast goes slightly outwards and then the caster turns in his rod hand shoulder significally in the back stop position. When he starts the final forward acceleration he turns his upper body. Due to that his rod hand shoulder and rod hand are moving outwards to the rod hand side (seen from bird's view). The lines end follows and passes the dangle UP and OUTWARDS. This is exactly what very often causes the final unrolling to collaps without the help of wind or stopping the rod-leg by the caster.



Now let's compare this with the close stance.

http://vimeo.com/4796047

That makes it pretty clear why I don't see the same problem as strong for casters using the close stance.
Ok, still tip path during acceleration and the unrolled line in the bc are not along a straight line really.
However it's significant less change in direction here.

Let's have a look at this guy :
http://vimeo.com/11664211



Now to me it's also pretty clear why all this happens when going for highest line speed but for "almost the same cast" with less line speed we get nice unrolling. On high line speed the centrifugal forces get too strong mostly and the fly-leg gets out of "parallel" and will be slown down too much in the end.

Greets
Bernd

p.s.: Paul, I tried to use "lean back" the other way round now. Lean to the rod hand side on the back cast and lean back to line hand side in the forward cast while using the open stance and body rotation like you do in the video linked here. That might be very interesting to try!

[Bernd]

Watch the rod hand on the final stroke and then relate it to the lines end following thru the dangle next to the caster running up and outwards.

http://vimeo.com/4748124

[Bernd]

Paul,
did you cast with Alejandro's rigid rod and check what happens with the cast?

Yes and no I completely forgot I had too much trouble making it work!

Hi Paul,
now since I understand the cause of the whole problem I came back to this one, too.
The technique I used to cast the broomstick was:
"Up, Down, UP" ... in regard of my rod hand path.
As soon as I start the foward acceleration I drop my rod hand like hell. That gives me a very slight convex tip path (almost straight) especially in the beginning of the arc.
So the redirecting should be smaller here!

Let's have a look again:
http://vimeo.com/21029307

This would mean the problem should be at least much smaller.
Now I went out and used my 13wt. Tarpon rod to throw a 4wt. line. Unrolling looks damned good on all hauled casts!

So to me this was the final prove that the redirection of the line in the beginning of the rotation is the critical key figure to work on here.

Best
Bernd

[sushiyummy]

So, Bernd, isn't this all pointing to oscillation of a mass around one or two neutral axis? Whether the 1st axis is vertically tilted ala the rod canting, or a 2nd horizontal axis running through the tip(neutral plane for dangle).

Yes, at higher speed, the mass outside the axis gets more energy, hence more overshoot.

As for the closed stance in your 2nd vimeo video, it looks like the fly leg always stay outside the rod tip on the back cast because the tip moves inwards as the bc stop. I also think the fly leg is not misbehaving as much from overshoot as thefly leg unrolls so vertically close to the rod leg there is very little oscillation around the vertical axis. But there can be camera angle issues that don't tell the full story.

Yup, I try to make sure I remove oscillation as much as I can during the false cast. One bad habit I am working on removing is starting with too long of a carry on my backcast. When the yarn catches the grass, it slows down the loop, the line drops excessively from waiting for a full rollout, and a see- saw oscillation starts right there. This then reduces the line tension during the fwd cast, and this then takes several false cast to restore it.

I am also working on smoothening out the start of the cast to remove any waves. But this is secondary to having high line tension at the start of the fc/bc cast. I think playing with timing when the fly leg is in the unrolling process, and how hard one starts the cast can greatly affect oscillation of mass around a horizontal plane. If only we can cast so the line geometrically behaves like a javelin.

[Paul Arden]

Jesus, where is that? Is that me? :p I know it's me, but I have no idea where I am. Anyway, I switched stance about 12 months ago to fix tracking problems. I agree that reaching back/fading/dropping the back leg is very significant!

Cheers, Paul