Spot the Error(s)

We are going to try something a bit different. I hope this post will be an ongrowing thing.

 A bit of background first. I was recently given a Casio EX-FH20 for my birthday. The camera has a high speed feature which gives staggeringly clear slo mo’s. You can watch yourself in glorious slow motion, which is fine if you are casting well, but, I hope you will notice that in this particular clip I am not casting well, in fact I cringe every time I watch it.

 It has taken me a couple of weeks of watching it to finally work out that although there are several faults there is one in particular that leads to most of the others.

 What I would like is for you to comment on what you see and I will copy and paste your comments into this post.

 I have never seen this done before but I don’t see any reason why it won’t work.

 Over to you…

 From Mike Barrio; Is it the sideways drift/creep of your rod as you start the forward cast?.

 It’s before then Mike.

 From Alan; Is it the way you are letting the rod drop as you turn your head, looks like you are losing tension??

 I believe the fault is what causes this Alan.

 From Stefan Siilkavaara; 

Hi Mike!

You are not drifting dynamically relative to the surge of the loop/straighening line. This makes the backward stab/drift of you rod and the feeding back of the line to cause slack instead of increasing the arc/stroke for the next cast.

The slack will lead to you loosing available arc/stroke for the next cast and the slack risk to cause a sudden load a fair bit into your forward casting stroke. That would result in tailing loops. If the loop does not tail it will still not have the maximum speed you could give it. Only the last half your forward stroke will move the entire line, the first half is just moving a few feet of slackline by the tip.

If you look at the instance just before the slack forms you have a good strong surge that would draw in all that line from your haul and let you position the rod in the position you want it. You would be able to set the whole thing up with a taunt line if you go with that surge instead.

It is not necessary per se to save the drift for the last part of your cast. You can hit the casting stroke and seamlessly go into drift at once without waiting at all.

More specific, the time as when to drift and feed back the line is dynamic like anything else in casting. When it pulls you should follow and feed and feel for that moment when it is taunt, then you turn and start to pull.

Long winding comment, sorry. You are feeding back the haul to late and drifting back to late.

Best regards
Stefan

Thanks Stefan,

 I think there is one over-riding fault that leads to the creation of slack, ie, that dog-leg in the line. The backcast is dynamic enough to pull any slack out made during the backcast stroke . This particular fault seems to add slack just at the moment the momentum of the bc has slowed and unable to pull it out.

 We are lucky (?) to have 0001 and 133 slo mo in ajoining posts. Look at the reel in both clips.

From Stefan;

Hi Mike!

Sure there is more. But that´s the one I would addess first. When you are in better contact with the line you will know better where to aim you tip. You would get kinetically aware of it.

In 113 your line is taunt when you turn. Look at the rod tip and your line hand.

Do you belive perfect tracking to be along a static line? What will happen if you just happen to cast one BC off the line and then still force your FC along that line? Watch Paul cast from directly in front.

Why do you think Rajeff sometimes does so much false casting before he delivers? Everyone of his BC-loops looks good enough to hit it on seen from the side.

Best regards
Stefan

 I agree entirely about tracking, and I am the first to admit I need to get my backcast more dynamic but if you watch the plane of the reel in the 133 you will notice that it stays pretty much inline with my stroke. If you look at 0001 you will see that just as I strat to straighten my body my wrist turns and takes the tip out of line. Since I noticed this I now watch my reel when I cast and try to keep it in plane and everything is a lot sweeter. If we get a calm day I will do another slo mo and see if it looks better.

From Ben Spinks; There’s nothing wrong with it Mike, nothing at all, just make sure you cast like this next time you’re up against me )

 No chance!

 From Roger;

How fascinating, how to demonstrate that one look is worth thousand words. This is the first time on any forum/blog that something has really caught my interest.
Hopes this sets a new standard.

It is one thing for those to talk about certain aspect of casting but how great it is to see it slow motion in decent quality.

Nice one Mike

Well Rog, there is only so much crap casting of me I can put up, I have a reputation to uphold you know!

 If anyone else fancies having their stroke ripped apart put it up on YouTube and I will add it here.

From Chase Jablonski;

Hi Mike,

Saw a few things:

The forward cast begins too late–slack has a chance to accumulate.

Drift after back cast moves the rod out of the casting plane. This both invites tracking errors and causes slack line.

Peak haul speed is too early forward and back.

Forward cast haul not smoothly accelerating. Could be faster.

Forward cast might be more powerful if you could lead with your elbow. More muscles in play that way.

Cheers,

Chase

 I can’t disagree with any of that Chase. Not to make excuses (much) but it’s new rod I hadn’t cast with much (Angel 2TE) which is faster than anything I have cast for ages, and, I made the mistake of not having a few warm up casts before the clip was filmed. I was specifically interested in the dog leg created by the rod moving out of line and what caused to rod to move out of line in the first place. I am pretty sure it’s caused by my turning my wrist just prior to drag, you can see the reel go out of plane. If you watch my 133 in the previous post (The End) you will notice that the reel stays pretty much in plane with the stroke and no dog leg.