Teaching & analyzing casts with video / "CHANCES ARE"

Walter & Group :-

Dusty Sprague comes in with more advice on videoing casters:-

On the video taping....As I recall, Mel and Al used a white rod provided by Fenwick....not absolutely sure though.  Bill G. wrapped his rod with white plumbers Teflon tape...I've used it as well and it works good.  

 

I think Bill filmed casting for his DVD standing on the side of a lighted golf driving range at night with the range lights illuminating him against a backdrop of dark high bushes and trees.  I think he used a white fly line.  The outcome was superb.  I drove to Texas to spend some time casting with Bill a few years ago.  He filmed my casting while I stood on a boat dock on the edge of his duck-hunting river with a high bank of trees behind me, with Bill across the river high on the opposite bank.  A bit of a pain logistically having to use a johnboat to get back and forth across the river, but the film came out very good. 

 

RIO at one time had a line that would glow in the dark if 'charged' with a flashlight.....it worked well for filiming at niight.

 

I've had poor success filming during the day using various line colors....just not enough contrast.  As mentioned below contrast is the key.  

 

One setup I've used with students works pretty well.....at an indoor soccer arena with a suitably dark wall as a backdrop, set the camcorder (with a wide-angle lens)  up on a tri-pod 30 feet or so from the caster pointing for front or back cast.  Using a 19 inch TV connected to the camcorder, playback the film segment on the TV screen for the caster to immediately see the filmed sequence.  Provides good feedback quickly.  

 

I have intended to obtain long - 40 foot - coax cables to position the TV screen in front and to the side of the caster for instantaneous viewing by the caster while in motion.  Haven't gotten around to that yet....maybe one day..

 

Dusty  

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COMMENT:  Tom White played with the use of that luminescent fly line.  Worked well.  He thought of painting the fly rod with luminescent paint, but found that the white rods as well as the TFO bright yellow teaching rods worked just fine.

 

 Dusty's comment on Bill Gammel's tape is correct.  It is a great teaching tape .... especially for guiding students with a method of increasing distance in a logical way by concentrating on the essentials.   I really like his way of teaching distance casting by making loops as small as possible starting with 30' of line carried and casting with ever faster cadence, then adding one foot of line at a time and doing the same thing until you can no longer make those perfect loops with high line speed ........  then backing off on the amount of line carried, etc., etc. *

 

 

* TEACHING YOURSELF TO FLY CAST, Bill Gammel,  C 2002, ISBN 0-9722435-0-X,  Gammel Outdoor Services,              (281) 734-6024 .       Gordy

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Is it possible that we are the only Fly Casting Study Group in existance which has its own Poet ?????  

 

This with permission from Jerry Puckett:

 

                                                               

CHANCES ARE

 

Fly fishermen never die

They just cast and fish

Their way to an eternal

River full of fat trout and

Fishing angels, don't believe

Me, just ask Tom and Mel!

 

Newbies slinging their loops 

At The Golden Gates, that's

Our ticket to get in, Jesus

Looking on with desire from

Sermon on the Mount with

Wide eye wow,

 

“God, I want to learn cast

Loops like that, now that will

Get some attention on my

Return, walking on the

Water, casting, and fishing

For fun!”

 

I am going to need some

Instructors for the sinners

I reel in!  I will need Bruce,

Bill, Gordy, Guy, Jason,

Gary, and Al's gangs to teach

The bread winning essentials!

 

Someone needs to talk sterling to

Troy and get him back in the fold,

That man has a heart of teaching

Gold!

 

 

      Copyright and Written

      By Gerald L. Puckett

      January 23, 2009

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