Regarding my casting. I have tried casting so many ways. I did the 10:00-2:00 thing, 9:00-1:00, tucking my arm in (which actually helped a little). I even bought a book by Lefty Kreh, which has some good info, but for some reason, on my forward cast the tailing end of the loop drops waaaay down and when it goes to straighten out, the fly grabs the line and my line looks like a lasso laying on the water. Or maybe a noose..... Depends on how you look at it. What the loop looks like is an issue better left to another thread...

A good snatch and some colorful phrases will straighten it out while it's on the water, but I'd rather avoid that. I've tried using better loop control, but it seems the loop doesn't want to cooperate with me. I even count on my back cast, 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi and then I forward cast. I also keep my wrist straight. I don't think I'm over or under powering it. Every so often I can get a tight, beautiful loop and it looks so nice, I have to keep trying.

I thought I may have been using too heavy a fly. A 4wt should be able to handle a size 8 fly shouldn't it? I also noticed that when my rod was fixed by JB Weld at the ferrule, the eyes weren't lined up as straight as they should be. Another observation left me thinking that maybe 40 to 60+ feet casts are too much for a 7'6" 4wt.... So a little practice session almost left my rod in pieces in Shoal Creek...

Does anyone have a suggestion? Is there a special group I can attend, like a Crappy Casters Club? A "good" video? I've looked at YouTube and wasn't impressed with the videos I found there. I couldn't see the whole rod, or it was all a straight forward shot of the guy casting...