History of the HAUL

Walter & Group.....

-----Original Message-----
From: james brown [mailto:mcleods63@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 9:35 PM
To: gordy hill
Subject: some neat articles

gordy,

found this a few weeks ago and thought you might like it. i have been a big john alden knight fan for years as was my grandfather who taught me. in the first book, there are many mentions of the single haul as early as 1915 at cornell university. it struck me, that many of the concepts have not changed much since the times of wells-there descriptions are much better than many of the writings after world war 2. sometime after the war, in much of my literature secrets were kept classified almost it seems.

take care, mac brown

http://home.att.net/~slowsnap/reviews7.htm

That's great ! I love things about the history of fly casting. I, too, learned fly casting from my grandfather.....so early in life that I hardly remember being, "taught"....grew up figuring it was just something one did.

Difference from most of that era, is the fact that he and my father were among the very first salt water fly casters. I remember fishing in the salt in the 1930's with bamboo rods, dressed silk lines, "gut" leaders that we had to soak to soften, flies snelled to the gut by my father who was quite a fly tyer (author of the, "Pop Hill Special" bonefish fly which, incidentally, is depicted upside down in Lefty's book on flies).....and linen, "Cuttyhunk" backing.

Grandpa was a friend of Marvin Hedge who is noted for the first recorded use of the double haul (Tournament distance event in 1938, I believe.) I suspect fly anglers had used it way before that without realizing that it was anything special enough to deserve a name.

It's interesting to note the passages in Charles Ritz', A FLY FISHER'S LIFE (Circa 1959) p. 49 as he so accurately describes the, "line pull with the left arm" as adding extra line speed. Note that he did NOT say that in increased the load (bend) of the rod. Years later, it was taught that the main thing that the haul did was to help bend the rod further and store more energy for later release. We now know, that while it does do this, that the PRIMARY effect of that haul is to directly increase line speed. Any argument to the contrary is easily put down by using the haul very effectively to gain line speed with a rod which is not capable of storing energy......a broom stick which we rigged with tip-top, guides, etc.

As with John Alden Knight, Charles Ritz describes many casting moves which have seemed to be, "reinvented" by modern pundits who gave them the names we use today.