a mostly pointless post about misadventures with a fly line...
ignoring odd looks and enquiries from passing joggers & dogwalkers, I stationed, facing downstream & parallel to the bank) myself in a long smooth pool of the Don near my home for some casting practice. (no one else fishing, so no-one else being disturbed).
I've been slowly getting to grips with 14ft double-handed rod... but I've just fitted a rio outbound shooting head/running line - it of course behaves very differently from the longer Spey lines that I'd been flaying the water with - so I wanted to play with that and work out the differences.
Spent some time working out the loading points, and what happened if there was too much running line outside the rod tip, or too much shooting head inside the rod rings. And then a fairly peaceful time experimenting with finishing points of the rod tip on the forward stroke (too low... ah, that explains all the splash landings!).
All good stuff. then remembering a certain mr dixon's advice, I spent a good while on just roll casting. over. and over. really cool seeing how little power you can get away with..... on the rare occasions it clicked, there was no noise or swoosh or splash... just watching the shapes of the D-loop, and the effects different sizes produced was really useful.
After a while, I'd kinda worked out that the right-hand (up hand) barely moved, but just acted liked a swivel point/fulcrum, and the lower /left-hand drove the short stroke... doing a bit of reading today on d-handed with shooting line casting, it seems that I'd stumbled myself into doing the recognised underhand cast! cool!! OK, I sure wasn't doing it well, but it was close.
also found that sweeping the rod back (from the dangle) almost parallel to the water before raising it to the D-position seemed to anchor the line and prep it better... all really cool, i felt I was learning something
I guess the point is that I never really take the time to just cast. and practice. and then more. But I should - I can, and have, read the sexyloops casting guides til my eyes water, but I don't 'feel' it, i cannot picture it... i guess my brain needs to do stuff for it to click. And yes, it probably would be better to take more lessons and get taught, but it is nice to experiment and see what happens too!
iain
