Fly Casting - Trying to improve my fly casting

[ibefishintoo]

After years of just getting by fly casting where I could at least go fishing, I started to get serious about improving my casting. I could cast about 60 ft or so and that got me by until I started saltwater fishing. I read lots of books and started almost daily sessions. I wouldn't call it practice since I didn't really know what I was doing. But, after awhile I started to find some of the answers. If I pay attention, I can throw reasonably good loops, some are even those sexy pointed loops. My distance is up to about 80 ft if I pay attention.

I f I don't pay attention while casting, like when I'm fishing, I still get some of the old habit lousy casts. I hate those sine wave things that collide with the outbound fly. I know the cause as soon as it happens but I didn't pay attention while making the cast. I read where it's muscle memory but mine still goes back to the old memory and not the new one. Maybe when my practice time exceeds all the time I spent lousy casting the new muscle memory will take over. I hope so.

Any additional advice would be appreciated. I want to get rid of those sine waves and get to a 100 ft cast.

Thanks to all the contributors for the wealth of information on this site.

Bill
Florida USA

[Marc LaMouche]

hi Bill,
check out (and study and practice the drills) this article by Bill Gammel
http://www.sexyloops.com/articles/adjustmentsonthefly.shtml

cheers,
marc

[Paul Arden]

Hi Bill and welcome to the Board!!

Play is the best practise tool. Practise with all lengths of line in all planes at targets short and long, through hoops standing and on the ground. Casting around trees etc. Quite quickly it becomes therapeutic to simply pick up a rod, go outside, and have fun casting.

After a while you will never think about casting when fishing. Just the target. There are lots of fun practise drills in Carlos' section on SL. Becoming a smooth caster takes hundreds of hours of practise, every instructor will have spent thousands upon thousands of hours casting.

Cheers, Paul

[Snake Pliskin]

After a while you will never think about casting when fishing. Just the target.

Totally agree. For me this is always the goal where fishing is concerned, and a major achievement as an instructor if you can coach someone to that kind of unconscious competence* That feeling of being in the zone, when it's just me and the target is why I pick a rod up most days.

*For the geeks who like stuff like this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence

Edit - What Paul said about play too! (smart chap obviously) Fun practice is good practice!

[victor]

After a while you will never think about casting when fishing

I'm not sure I actually agree with that statement. As you say, many of us have spent thousands of hours working on our casting. I think it becomes second nature to think about the casting when we fish. Saying you can't, or don't, is a bit like saying you can't chew gum and walk

Welcome to the board Bill. Those wave things are tailing loops, I'm sure if you do a search on 'loops you will have enough reading to keep you happy for a week.

Mike

[ibefishintoo]

Thanks for the expert help. I will continue to work on this while I'm fishing tomorrow.

The wave things are on the bottom loop so I assume caused by reflex in the rod tip. Sometimes the wave on the bottom is wide enough to collide with the fly passing over on the top loop. My conclusion was that too much force caused this but I also note that drift on the forward cast after the stop helps smooth or eliminate it.

Good Fishin'

Bill

[Bernd]

Hi Bill and welcome on the board,
reading your postings here make me think you might want to meet a good fly casting instructor.
I am sure every of the instructors having posted in this thread would help you to improve your casting a huge step within an hour!
Without seeing your casting it is hard to really help.
In my experience it needs a lot of fly casting knowledge to be able to really nail down ones problems in a pure written text!
If you don't want to join a fly casting instructor my advice would be to read more about the essentials of fly casting and then check if you adapt them into your casting.
Mel Krieger's DVD "Fly Casting Faults and Fixies" might be interesting for you.
Anyway nothing beats the help of a good instructor.
Always worth the money and time.
Greets
Bernd

[Joe Mahler]

Bill,
there are a number of excellent instructors here in Florida that understand the challenges of salt water fly fishing. Also, The Sunshine State Casting Club is dedicated group of flycasters that are always willing to help. Feel free to contact me if you would like more information on either.
Joe