Tides (NOAA) / Tailing loops

I like this Cause-which-caused-the-cause."

I was told the if I twisted my hand on the delivery it would cure my tailing. Yes but the target was never found.

'one's cure could be another's fault'.

Remember Lefty says it is the upward tip travel/release direction.

I have to go with stroke length for most of my cure of tails. Texas Bass pluggers.

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Comment: Al is referring to Texas Bass Pluggers who are now learning fly casting and who are apparently wedded to short, explosive strokes.

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No. That's too complicated. A tailing loop is the result of a buckle in the tip path.

Stoke length cannot cause a buckle in the tip path.

[1] too narrow a casting arc for the bend in the rod (which includes forward creep)

[2] uneven or improper application of power (which includes your abrupt early power application)

[3] finishing the haul too soon

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Jim Valle has applied some wisdom when he stated that rather than concentrating on the differences of our opinions, we should first look at the similarities.

As I see it, 1) - 4) can have as the final result, a tailing loop. No argument. ( I like your word, "buckle" ..... I've also heard it described as a, "WOW" in the tip path and the line.)

Let's make it even LESS complicated by coming up with a simple common denominator for the cause of a tailing loop :-

A TAILING LOOP IS THE RESULT OF A BUCKLE IN THE TIP PATH. (your wording)

TAILING LOOPS ARE CAUSED BY A CONCAVITY IN THE PATH OF THE ROD TIP DURING OR BETWEEN CASTS.

This covers even the tail which can be produced by making a high trajectory back cast followed by a horizontal trajectory forward cast ... or any time we have a less than 180 degree angle between the two casts, so long as the rod plane isn't changed. This has been well described by Mac Brown in his, CASTING ANGLES.

Of course, we can always come up with a detailed analysis of the many things which happen to yield a tailing loop in any one instance. There could well be, for example, one cast which includes all of the tail producing faults at the same time.

Someday, someone will write a book on all the factors which can give rise to the various, "causes" for the tailing loop.

If I do that, I may entitle it, " THE TAILING LOOP; root cause analysis. "

In writing it, if I choose to include all of the, "causes" listed in the world's casting literature, it would assume the proportion of a tome.

I'll never write it.

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Interesting comments from Troy Miller, especially with regard to teaching in the, "real world" :-

Here’s my point. On a long LONG cast (the definition of a long cast changes from caster to caster – 100’ is a long cast to me, while 125’ may be what Paul defines as long), EVERY caster will use some amount of translation. I don’t believe that a single handed rod can be cast “long” using PURE rotation. If we can agree on that point, then I think it’s fair to argue that there can be too much or too little or just the optimal amount of translation. Is that a reasonable assumption? OK, I’ll concede that if your definition of long is like 40 or 50 feet, you can get by with a rotation-only cast. But it’s VERY difficult to tail in that cast because it’s just so durn hard to get the tip to travel in a concave path with that little line out and the relatively weak strength of the human wrist. I’d like to hear from Bruce how far he and Noel were able to get the robot to cast using rotation only. Were you ever able to get 80 or more feet, Bruce?

I’ll conjecture that application of power cannot be improper on its own. It can only be judged as optimal or not when viewed in the context of the other motions the caster makes. The caster must tune the stroke length, hand path, onset and intensity of rotational acceleration, the amount of line out, the type of fly being cast, the wind conditions, the nature of the flyrod (sectional stiffness profile), and other more subtle factors – in order to achieve maximum loading, tip speed, and at the same time focus the energies by rod tip SLP.

I’m purely talking about teaching real students here. And real students have this innate sense that to cast farther, they have to get the line moving faster. Which is not incorrect. If I can cast my 6 weight Hyperblaster Supreme XZV rod to 45 feet with beautiful loops and perfect delivery by loading the rod 60% of the way down and with a tip speed just prior to the stop of 160 mph, then it’s absolutely logical to assume that to cast that same rig to 75 feet will probably require deeper loading (maybe 80% of the blank) and a higher final tip velocity of maybe 210 mph. The higher levels of kinetic and potential energies will be necessary to transfer to the flyline loop to do the increased work. What many of casters don’t consider is that it becomes increasingly difficult to go from static rod and line (beginning of cast) to max velocity and load as we try to cast farther – and STILL MAINTAIN SLP. If we don’t adjust the stroke (translation and rotation), then the auto-pilot in most of our brains say “HARDER, FASTER DUMMY!!” My little gimmick is to tell the students “Sweet talk the line into motion at first. Give yourself a longer distance to get the whole mess up to the higher speed that you know you need.” I show by example, getting the rod tip to 200 mph with only 6 feet of tip travel, and then doing it more gradually over 14 feet. It perfectly illustrates to the student how a rod that is hammered will exhibit a tip path dipping below SLP and generate a beautiful tail on command. A rod that is brought up to speed more uniformly over a longer tip travel will usually be under better control and can SLP better for you.

Hopefully some of this makes a little sense. I’m really tired…

Regards -- TAM

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Troy.. Good thoughts.

As far as I know, Bruce and Noel never did come up with a robot. The golfers did. They called it the "IRON BYRON ".

Any one who has tried to make a good distance cast using rotation alone has found that it doesn't work very well for reasons we all know.

A caster can minimize faults by, "taking it easy" and spreading the application of power over a greater distance. Same amount of power, but applied more smoothly.

I'm reminded of Lefty's advice to a caster who was using inappropriate application of power leading to a layout which was a mess.

He told him to use no more power with the casting arm on his delivery cast than he'd used on his prior false cast; but to use greater speed for the haul. He followed by saying something like, " Make your cast with your casting arm; let your haul be the accelerator".

Not 100% accurate, but IT WORKED.

Gordy