Casting Contest Results - Interesting

Last night in the chat room people were talking about casting distances. This prompted my interest in looking up the results of 'distance casting' events. So I did. Bear in mind that the following measurement are based on One Handed casting using special lines that conform to the contest rules but are not the normal lines you'd use on the stream/river.

I did not write down the names of the contests. I looked at the results of 7 contests. Some were indoor and some outdoor therefore, on average, wind did not play a role.

Here are the winning and 2nd place lengths, in feet (rounded off), of casts in the men's 'A' Division:
99, 99, 98, 94, 98, 119, 98, 113, 108, 106, 80, 99, 92, 98, 97, 99, 100, 99, 90, 117, 109, 113, 102, 97, 96, 95, 99, 96, 96, 111, 115(dq'd -oob).
The average 1st or 2nd place casts works out to be 101 feet.

Allan

[Betty Hiner]

And here, I was feeling pretty good about casting out as far as the fish! (what 40 -50 feet?)

------------------
Trouts don't live in ugly places

[grumps]

betty

as long as you are casting far enough to reach the fish, anything more is just exercise.

mike

JC -

Apparently the results of these contests indicate otherwise. The longest winning cast I read was at the 2002 contest in Salt Lake City. Jim Gundenson cast 111'3" for first place. Tim Rajeff had a cast of 115' but it was out of bounds. Maybe the results of some more recent contests have longer casts.

Allan

I am confused. These numbers don't match at all with those reported on FAOL in "The 97th ACA National Casting Tournament
By Jim C. Chapralis".

Who among you can provide enlightenment?

Bluehackle,

I think the difference you notice is because of the equipment being used. As I read the requirements about equipment, the events Jim spoke about use 9', 10 weight rods and about 25 feet of line backed by light mono. The equipment in the events I listed is more like you'd actually fish. 9', 5 weight rods but the lines are still somewhat custom made(within certain guidelines). Regardless of the equipment, those guys are great casters. My point was that casting events like those do not relate to casting while fishing or even on the lawn, unless you practice with a competition level set-up.

Allan

[Gnu Bee Flyer]

JC do they have one handed casting contests where you have to use just regular lines that are used in actual fishing or do all contests have the special gear . I think with regular gear the average cast would go down just a little .

[LadyFisher]

I believe the results Allan quoted were from the ISE Shows. The rods used are ALL stock factory rods, 9ft. 5 weight, actually ones lent to the event by rod companies attending the shows.
The leaders are ALL the same, and are not special, the lines are ALL 5 wt, weight forward. JC did manage one of these a few years ago in Seattle, the lines were not all from the same company, but they did have to be the 'standard' 5 wt forward. The person casting picked one of the rods 'in the barrel' and cast. No one was allowed to bring their own rod.

The ACA is actually considering adding this kind of an event to their competitions as well since it is more of a 'fishing' event than some they have.



[This message has been edited by LadyFisher (edited 20 November 2005).]

JC - Yes, I guess I did.

LF - Thanks for that information.

Allan

[ohiotuber]

118 feet!!....that's NOTHIN'!!!...My Jeep will go 130 feet on a bucks worth of gas easy!!!...Sometimes even 140 feet! na-na-na-na-na!

Seriously, I'm with Betty on this one!
Mike

------------------
This site's about sharing!