Thanks Bruce. My theory may be OTL ( out to lunch). I have recieved some resitance to the idea that practice casting long lines is a good thing to do. Practicing with lines longer than you will actually fish with. I'm a little on the fence about saying it might be better to start learning to cast with a long line, before trying to cast a shorter line. On the theory that your intial casting with a short line might teach poor technique from the beginning that might be difficult to unlearn. But not being able to start over myself, because I started learning to cast with a short line. It's hard to say if starting to learn to cast with a line several feet ( 4 or 5 ft) longer than the rod is a good idea or not. Maybe I could test the theory if I had someone who wanted to learn to cast. Starting with a heavier line of #4.5 or #5 might help the learning process too before going to a lighter line of # 3 or # 3.5.Originally Posted by Bruce Norikane
If you look at this video showing kids fishing at a fish pond. Where the fish are hungery and easy to catch. Most of the children appear to be using lines that are 4 - 6 feet longer than the rod. Most of them do fairly well casting. So I don't think it's their first time casting the line. In some cases the adults help them cast, and land the fish. But the lines appear to be quite a bit longer than the rods. Though it's possible the lines just look that long in the video. btw , Dr Ishigaki is one of the adults instructing the children.
The title translates as something like First Parent Child Tenkara Experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGi-F64vWPI
Of course on some streams short lines are the best or only way to fish. Long lines the choice in other places. And some people choose either short or long lines all the time.
I practice casting lines of 7, 8, 10 meters. I do pretty well with 7. Ok with 8. Not very well at all with a 10 meter line. 80% of the time I fish with a line 4.5m, 5m or 5.5m.
Once in a while a 4m or shorter line or 6m line. A few times just to see how it worked out a 7m line, just because I have learned to cast one decently. However, it seems like I catch more fish with a line of 4.5 or 5m. Pluse tippet. Most of the time I only fish with a longer line on wide rivers. Because I can see subsurface structure where fish might be sheltering or I can see fish jumping just a little to far for me to reach with a shorter line. Either fishing from the bank or wading and the middle of the river is to deep to wade into to reach the fish seen on the far side.
David
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