Does the line always follow the rod tip ? 2

Walter & Group...

[GH] From Tom Zacoi:

Good Morning Doctor Hill,

Do you ever miss doing a total hip or knee the first thing in the morning?

I may have missed it and Lefty perhaps others may have weighed in on it, but in all the years we taught together Lefty's mantra was "The fly line follows the path where the rod tip speeds up and stops." I'm not certain the "qualifying words" speeds up and stops has any bearing on this discussion but our students, especially those new to the sport seemed to understand that "principal."

Hope all is well,

As an aside, I borrowed Joan and Lee Wulff's, Fly-O concept; modified a women's lacrosse stick by adding the yarn and use it to help the players understand how important the wrist snap is to trajectory when throwing a lacrosse ball correctly:)

Thomas Neil Zacoi

WAYNESBURG

UNIVERSITY

Head Coach-Womens Lacrosse

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[GH] Tom,

Yes... I sometimes do miss performing surgery. Occasionally I still "do" operations in my dreams. I operated for well over 50 years.... so it became ground into my chromosomes.

My present thought is that most of the time at least some of the line does actually follow the rod tip path taken at or near the end of the cast. Aitor Coteron qualified that with his statement, "The line goes where the rod tip goes... only when the whole length of the line is aligned with the trajectory of the rod tip." His evidence lies in his video : http://vimeo.com/20736865aitorc/does-the-line-follow-the-rod-tip

Mac Brown felt that to say that the line follows the rod tip was an antiquated belief... then qualified it with his statement, "One could argue that one finite section of line right at the tip top eyelet is the only point that does(without shooting line) follow the rod tip. The direction of line in itself is even too vague overall so perhaps studying overall line layout (more common for presentation) should be the focus."

So I certainly can't categorically say, "Lefty was wrong".

Even if he's not 100% correct from an "Ivory Tower" scientific point of view, this concept works so well for teaching at all but advanced theoretical levels that from an educational point of view, it works to get students casting well. This fits with your statement, "...but our students, especially those new to the sport seemed to understand that 'principal.' " It helps my students as well.

Let's try to keep our minds open as we ponder other opinions.

Gordy

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[GH] Ally Gowans has given this issue a great deal of thought. This from him. (I converted his attachment to a pdf and included it) :

Hi Gordy,

Each element of line travels according to the forces applied to it. This includes those from the rod tip and those from momentum of adjacent line elements and external influences.

Aitor’s demonstration is lovely and the result is totally predictable. I tried to encourage thinking about the relative locations of the line mass/s and the rod tip a while back and submitted the attached sketches that represented the line as a point mass to make this easier (I thought!) for others to comprehend but of course a line is not a point mass but the idea helps towards understanding of how the pull on the line varies according to the length and displacement of the line. Aitor’s chain converts the “line” to a series of point masses if you like and is a closer representation of the fact. Only when the line and rod tip are exactly aligned with the applied force will the velocities of each element be the same.

Study of rod movement in isolation is insufficient to explain the outcome of a cast.

Best regards,

Ally Gowans

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