More on DRAG & SLIDE

Hey Gordy,

How's that tarpon fishing? I've been away some lately: fishing, presenting, travelling, so I'm catching up. Hope you are well.

I learned what "drag" is (for casting) in this e mail.

So I realized I've been talking about it for a long time now. At most of my casting demonstrations for years now too.

Besides giving (and allowing) you more distance to load the rod and distance to move the rod tip for the entire casting stroke, it does another VERY importent thing.

It helps you keep that "casting energy" along the same straight track for your unload as it does (or did) for your load. It helps "set you up" for the unload. (an efficient one) Puts you in position to keep your rod tip "tracking straight" for your unload.

Again, the "moving catapult".

I often mention this as "leading with the reel". (as you load) - rod slanting backwards (sometimes greatly - like example Rick Hartman) as you go through the load.

If you load with a, say, a rod butt angle of 90 degrees (perpendicular) to the flat ground
you will have a tendency to unload throwing a lot of that casting energy into the ground (or more towards that direction) than straight ahead (or in the direction you most likely want your fly to go). This is obviously inefficient, and unless you are very good, "leading with the reel" - dragging, will help you be more efficient.

And it REALLY DOES help in my casting while fishing. Most of the time it's HOW I CAST.
And how I teach too.

That's funny. I didn't see it as Al did. Drag doesn't get you the connection. Doesn't get you it out of no tension. You're already there. It has nothing to do with not having a straight line to start with. That rod tip is just back, so it sets up the cast better. That's all.

Any great caster I've seen starts with a very straight line. Steve Rajeff's line is not straighter than anyone else's who's really good.

The better the cast the less "drag " is needed? Then that wasn't my interpretation. You can do it (get that rod tip back there) or not.

You have to remember that when it comes to 5 wts. and distance, it's well known that in competition, Rick Hartman simply does not perform as well as he can perform.

I'm told that (by various people) that he has commonly gotten 135 feet in practice. Jake Jakespeare of Temple Forks rods told me he was getting 140 ft. with their Axiom 5 wt.

Andrew Colley of Little Rock AR, get 135's. He extends greatly, like Rick does.

I think that people who extend, and "drift" or get that rod tip back there, are, and will be the longest casters. 5 wts. included.

Best Regards,
Mark

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Great teaching message, because you have used different "word pictures" to describe DRAG.

Also gives us some other accomplishments for this maneuver which can be added to our list.

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Thanks for that critique. Everything you say is clear to me except for your second point "One can SLIDE and DRAG at the same time. I think he's doing that between frames 1 and 4. In other words, I think he is dragging from the start (slide 1.)" about which I am greatly confused.

2.) It can aid in taking up any unwanted slack.

3.) For some casters it helps reposition the hand and arm for efficient rotation.

4.) It can keep the line moving while delaying rotation. (Delay of rotation has been shown by Bruce Richards to help casters achieve tighter loops.)

5.) For most casters, it doesn't yield much acceleration. While I don't think it has been actually measured, I suspect that elite distance casters who use it will be found to have greater acceleration with this move than most casters can achieve. (Problem is that with pure translation, one cannot accelerate the rod tip any more than acceleration of the hand alone in contrast to hand angular acceleration being greatly magnified by the rod as a long lever arm during rotation. As the rod bends in proportion to the energy applied, this translates to linear acceleration of the rod tip.)

In the second picture, I see his rod hand having moved significantly to the right of that door frame while his line hand has moved to the left to now align with the window frame i.e. the line has travelled to the left.

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I can't tell from still pictures whether this is the case with Rick's cast, but I can imagine sliding the line back at a slower rate than the rod is dragged forward in which case the two maneuvers would be going on at the same time.

I think you are correct in that the slide would cancel out the effect of the drag if both were occurring at the same rate.

In that case, sliding the line back would diminish the effectiveness of the drag, but it would get the line hand way up to the rod which would help with the following haul.

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