Line shoot re line, "carried"

You have seen the various answers to our question of line shoot relative to the amount of line carried on prior messages.

Follow this string of messages on the length of line shot relative to the amount of line carried while false casting. At the Master workshop at Mountain Home, Chuck Easterling had set up a casting challenge with a fixed amount of line while false casting.

Chuck challenged us by asking the same question that you did. I said that I thought that any very good caster should be able to shoot about 40%, maybe even 50% of the amount of flyline that he had out of the rod tip prior to the release. He said that he’s heard that from a lot of people, and then he challenged me to put my money where my mouth was. I rarely turn down a casting challenge, because the worst thing that can happen is that I can learn about ANOTHER one of my limitations when I’m wrong…

Chuck had me hold the rod at the casting line while he stripped off line until the fly was at 90 feet (measured via a tape on the ground). Then he asked me to strip line back until the fly was at 60 feet. Then, he had me false cast ONLY that amount of line for as long as I liked. (this was hard, because naturally, I wanted to slip line into the loop to carry more). On whichever forward cast I chose, I was allowed to shoot all that I could, hopefully back out to 90 feet. There was a 1 to 5 mph variable breeze. When I started, it was insignificant, but it built to 4 or 5 mph just about the time that I released and shot. My loop rolled out straight about 3 feet above the ground (all 90 feet), then the leader collapsed back slightly to 85 feet. Indoors it would have fallen completely extended. Maybe if I’d lowered my trajectory a degree to compensate for the increasing wind, it would have landed without blowback. Chuck commented that not everyone can shoot that much.

That night at Fred’s Catfish House, we were talking about it, and realized that Chuck duped me. He didn’t set up the test as I had accepted – he had me shooting more than 70% of the flyline out of the rod tip. When I stripped back to 60 feet, I only really had 42 feet of flyline out of the rod tip. The rod is 9 feet long, as was the leader. This is 18 feet less than the 60 feet between my feet and the fly. So all I really needed to shoot was 21 feet to have made the 50% that I hoped I could do. There’s a difference between saying that you can shoot 50% of the length of flyline out, and shooting 50% of the length of the cast. I now believe that almost anyone intermediate level or above should be able to shoot 40% to 50% of the length of flyline they have out (assuming that they have out 30 feet or more). Shorter lengths of line are much harder to get significant shoots from.

To put some numbers to my claim, let’s say that Roderick is a solid intermediate caster. He can form loops well, has a decent DH, and controls slack adequately. I pull the fly out to the 50 foot mark (same equipment setup as Chuck had me use), and determine that he has 32 feet of flyline out of the tip. So, to make (what I’d call) a 40% shoot, he’d need to strip off another 13 feet of line and be able to shoot that in a single stroke. That would mean that the fly would land at 63 feet. So we strip off until the fly’s at 63, then pull back to 50, make him clamp off there until his shoot. I think most solid intermediates are capable of a 13 foot shoot under these circumstances. If not, they need to focus their energy in more of a straight line – i.e. improve their tracking/power application.

Let’s see what kind of responses you get before firing this out to everyone. I’d like to read what everyone thinks. Thanks Allen.

Regards -- TAM

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Troy...

Let me get this straight:

Chuck had you strip back to 60'. Now, was that 60' out of the rod tip ? or 60' from the fly to your hand ?

If it was 60' back to your hand, then you were carrying only 60' minus the length of the rod (say 9') which means you were carrying 51' while false casting.

Using the, "50% of the line carried formula", that means that you actually cast 85' (or perhaps 90' if not using tournament rules). Now 50% of 51' is 25 1/2', so using the formula, above, you would have been expected to cast out to not much more than 76 1/2' . You did very well, then, by trumping the, "rule" by somewhere between 9' and 12'.

Rules were meant to be broken, and it seems that is what you did.

One thing you didn't say, is whether or not you shot any line into your back cast prior to the delivery cast. If you had done that, I'd feel that that length of line should be added to the calculation of line carried. Your text suggests to me that you did not do that.

If all this is as stated, perhaps Chuck owes you a beer !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I see you and/or Al Crise ran this scenario by Bruce Richards. Do you have his response ?

Gordy

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Return message from Troy:

Yes, We pulled off line/leader until the yarn was 90 feet out. Then Chuck had me strip back in until the yarn was at 60 feet from my toes. At that point, he wanted me to false cast all I wanted without slipping ANY line at all. There were marks on the line and he watched to verify that I was not shooting during my preparation strokes. Then, when he said let her rip on the next forward stroke, I did. And she sailed. At that point, he told me I did very well, but I didn't realize until later that night, that he'd pulled a fast one on me. He didn't think I could do it, and the truth is, I only had 60 minus 9 (leader) minus 9 (rod and forearm) = 41 or 42 feet of flyline out. When I made the cast successfully, I had 90 minus 9 minus 9 = 72 feet of flyline out. 30 divided by 42 = 71% of the original length carried is what I shot. And he only gave me one chance at it, with his rod that I'd never touched before.

I don't think that the average caster can shoot more than 40 to 50% of the amount he's carrying. You have to have good SHOOTING technique, which is not necessarily the same skill as general casting form. I'm surprised that we have not had a discussion on proper shooting tactics to minimize parasitic friction effects and line slap, while enhancing smooth energy flow and not disturbing turnover of the loop in a negative way.

Yes, Bruce was involved in the discussion, I can send it off to you tomorrow if you remind me. I have to search it in my archives, but I have a 5K run to get to this evening. G'night

Regards -- TAM

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I, then, asked Chuck Easterling if he remembered the details. (I remember that he had a specific purpose in designing this drill, but I couldn't remember exactly what it was.) This is his reply :-

Hi Gordy,

I think that Troy may have misunderstood this drill. I would expect a good caster to shoot 50% of the line carried but the distance of the cast is usually significantly less than the total amount of line plus leader. The purpose of the drill is to learn something about power application and efficient loop shape.

Here is how this drill works. I have my line marked at 90' and 50' and have a leader of approximatley 10'. I will ask the student to put the 50' mark about a foot outside of the tip which means to me that the student is carrying 60' measured from the line hand. The 90' mark is all that is off the reel, it is locked down tight so no more line can be stripped from the reel. Now all the student has to work with is 90' of fly line and approximately 10' of leader.

The student is asked to limit his/her to carry to 60' of line measured from the line hand (the 50' mark is about a foot outside of the tip) and the first goal is to shoot to the 90' mark. When the student can do this he/she has for all intents a purposes a good shoot. This is the easy part of the drill.

Now comes the second and most challenging part of the drill--- to consistently cast over 90' using the above limitations--carry only 60', shoot the rest of the line (to 90') and have the leader lie out as straight as possible.

As you can tell, you are working with only 90' of line and 10' of leader and a number of people think that they should be pretty close to 100' with this--often that is not the case. Frequently, they can shoot the 30' line but the fly only lands about 75' away. Thus he/she has 25' of slop or inefficiency

As I have told students, if you will place these limitations on yourself you will learn a good deal about power application, haul timing and most importantly efficient loop shape.

Let me emphasize an accomplished caster can shoot more than 50% of the carry and some will strip off more line--this, however, defeats the purpose of the drill--we want to see how efficient we can be by limiting our carry to 60', shooting an additional 30' and having just enough energy to turn the leader over. With these limitations being able to consistently cast 90' is very good. If you can make 10 casts--with these limitations--and have all ten reach 90' you are doing very well. In other words you only have 10' of "slop" in your cast.

Distance casting is determined by three things: effective line carry; line speed; and loop shape. If we break down the cast and limit the amount of line carry to a fixed amount it forces us to focus the other two variables.

Chuck

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Chuck ... Now I begin to see how differences of opinion as to the length of line carried can appear.

By the term, "line carry" I have always meant the length of fly line OUT OF THE ROD TIP, EXCLUDING THE LEADER.

You are using the term to mean the length of line FROM THE LINE HAND TO THE FLY, INCLUDING THE LEADER.

A big difference !

Either way, it makes a good teaching drill.

Gordy

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