In the early 1950's I started fly fishing
with a soft 10ft cane rod having wire rings, and a no.3 (#7) DT
braided silk line - the only options! I learned the very long, slow
arm strokes needed to get everything moving, casting with four short
shoots. Being right handed I cast forwards in a left wind and
backwards in a right one, managing about 20yds. Double haul, when
mastered, put backing into the rings on a good day, backwards or
forwards. Performance was good into wind and in humid 'dead air', but
the grating line braid in the rings had to be endured. However, this
has all proved helpful when seeking top performance ever since.
Plastic lines arrived and WF's became
standard, proving good performers in a following wind, but were very
poor into wind or 'dead air'. Plastic DT's retained good performance
into wind and dead-air, did not grate in rings, but stretched more
than braided silk when casting. Floating DT's gave a further benefit
when casting to rising fish on stillwaters, in that having cast to
one fish another could be immediately covered by lifting off, then
casting to another with appropriate adjustments. With WF's the 'head'
had to be drawn back before re-casting, thus allowing the trout to go down.
In Fly Fishing and Fly Tying in 2007 a
correspondent said that 'a WF is supreme for distance', so I
responded 'I would equal any of his WF casts with a DT'. The
correspondent then became argumentative so, just for fun, I cast a DT
in a BFCC event, won, FF&FT published and, lo and behold the
correspondence stopped!
Not being motivated by winning, I only seek
to maximise my own casting performance using equipment I have
devised. Regarding my #7 record cast, which I never dreamed of
making, the important factors were: a 9ft rod to minimise leverage,
having a Full Wells Handle for a good grip and lined rings for
smoothness; very long slowly accelerating arm strokes and hauls
holding the line/backing join; a backcast as powerful as a T38
frontcast to straighten 30yd of line and leader into a strong breeze;
a frontcast as powerful as T38 to cast the heavy, 'fat' floating DT
line and its associated air drag. Casting DT's is very much the
opposite to what is expected in this frantic, 'want it now' world.
The casting strokes are slow accelerations, much more Land Rover FWD
than sports saloon, but the trick is the abrupt stop and invisibly
fast flick at the end.
Perhaps the 'casting wheel' has turned
nearly a full circle!
