Casting II ?

[fcch]

Ray,

Cool ... I suppose the person can really shoot a line

------------------
Christopher Chin, Jonquiere Quebec

[ducksterman]

Good thread...

"Intermediate folks, ... they have enough experience to make repetitive "faults" and not enough "experience" to "feel" the errors and auto-correct."....agreed.

It has often intrigued me how teaching and learning casting is so akin to teaching and learning the golf swing...

A couple of comments...

Golfers for the most part should "PRACTICE" the swing on the range and "PLAY" golf on the course...should we be "PRACTICING" casting and "FISHING" on the water?

Here's something for you gurus...

Golf instruction has made big strides with the advent of video....should it be used in casting instruction?....probably is by some?????

By the way Chris, IMHO you are too self critical I'll bet your clients love you and wish they could cast like you.

------------------
Respect Your Elders!

[fcch]

Duck,

I'll bet your clients love you and wish they could cast like you.

Oh man !! .... I'll have to find a video of me casting and you can be the judge of that

Some very competent and well know Masters of the art (of casting and flyfishing) has shaken their heads in amazement (and a bit of disgust ) at my "casting" style.

Then again, I can get a 10 dead drift on the far side of the #43 here across 50 ft of swift current from back on the beach

Not pretty, ... but it does connect


------------------
Christopher Chin, Jonquiere Quebec

[Steve Molcsan]

This is a very cool thread

I have not heard from Chris in a long while hope he is well..

[qrrfish1]

Students hear what you say, not what you meant. An instructor should hear the lesson thru his students ears. If your going to teach someone the fly rod, bring a spinning rod to remind yourself what the student hears. If you know what I'm saying it makes perfect sense, on the other hand I don't teach 'casting' to fly rod students, it cuts about thirty years off their learning curve some have told me.

[oldster]

This has been an interesting post! When I decided to fly fish ( about 50 yrs ago) I didn't know any one who knew how to cast so I made the mistake of trying to teach myself. I thought I was doing pretty good until I saw someone who knew what he was doing. I found that it is very important to find to have someone watch you cast. Much better than reading about it or watching someone, but the thing that helped me most was watching a video of my own casting. I was not doing what I thought I was doing! Practice makes perfect? No! Perfect practice makes perfect. The video really helped me.

[Mato Kuwapi]

Intermediate casters often have developed bad habits which have become ingrained. Call it muscle memory. They aren't thinking about it....they're just doing it. That explains why it's so hard to teach them something. It's why it's harder to teach a man who's been spin or bait casting all his life (and why it's easy to teach a woman, because she probably hasn't had much experience spin casting or throwing a ball)

They may hear what you're saying but their brain / muscles have already imprinted the bad habit. The best way to break it...take the rod and stick it in their OFF hand... ie, Left for a right hander. It throws them right off and they have to learn the basics all over again. After they get what you're trying to get across in the off hand...move them back to the good hand and go from there.

And like stated before...fishing isn't fly casting practice. If that's the only time they cast a rod...they won't get better. When you're fishing, you don't think about the cast. Casting practice is essential if you want to build good habits. It's what teaches the brain and muscles so when you do go out to fish, you don't have to think about the cast. You just do it.

[qrrfish1]

In all my years of working with fly fishermen, something they finely convinced me of was that they really didn't have any bad habits, they had poor understandings and gaps in their information. Once confronted with the definition of a 'bad habit', they realized they didn't have bad habits they had voids in their understanding, not bad habits. I never had a student or charter customer who chose to perform poorly even tho they knew how and could do better. There's a reason I don't use the word 'casting', and it goes directly to the reason my charges don't have bad habits.