Most likely the demonstration you saw was with Joe Humpreys at one of te shows. He does a "distance" bow and arrow cast for the crowd However the cast is really not meant for distance. It is meant to get you into super tight cover. If you try casting with the bow cast by using the fly line it is likely to hang itself in the brush as it unrolls.

One of the things we found in Portugal was that it helped tremendously to use a 10-11 foot rod in heavy cover in lieu of a 6-7 foot rod. The extra length helped place the fly at more than double the length of the rod. With an 11 foot rod you could effectively fish at 25 feet while with a 7 foot rod you could only reach about 15 feet. Generally it is difficult to get within 15 feet of spooky fish. The longer rods produced 10 times the takes.

John Wilson