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First of all, why when the right arm is doing a passable job of
flycasting, would I want to get the left arm involved in something it
"obviously" won't be any good at doing? I can think of several
reasons such as to spell a fatigued right arm or to substitute for a
"tennis elbow" injured right arm. However in my case, I have just
returned from bonefishing close to the equator where the tradewinds
almost always blow from 15 - 20+ miles per hour. With the wind at my
back I discovered that the section of water from 1 o'clock to 4
o'clock was not available to a right hand cast. When you have a guide
at your shoulder pointing out "big bone, 40 feet, 2 o'clock" you would
be removing barbless hooks from either his or your hide and increasing
the size of the daily tip---destroying a new friendship at the same
time. At the guide's suggestion I did try releasing the line on my
back cast which was workable, but was lacking in accuracy.
Therefore, a few days ago, I started to teach the left arm the casting
stroke. My left arm, I now realize, is like a first time fly caster
with the added advantage of never even having cast a spinning or bait
casting rod to pick up the bad habit baggage that came with my right
arm when it first tried serious fly casting. It is also "closely"(?)
connected to a brain that has read all the fly casting instruction
that is on the web, several books on fly casting, the tips sections of
magazines and watched more that a few instructional video tapes. It is
like I am watching my own private instruction pupil.
The first thing I noticed was that there is a definite lack of strength on the left
side but I expect this to improve with use. The second thing is that
the left arm is a better athlete than I expected. Most of the time it
does almost exactly what I request and to my amazement does it better
than the right arm did at this stage. After all, the left arm has
always been thought of as not having much coordination etc and a lot
of time used only to hold the steering wheel, while important tasks
like shifting are assigned to the right side. To tell the truth, this
is the first time I have been able to see the much-described tight
loop with the famous "v" top this close up. It is laying out 40 feet
of line on the back cast or fore cast, keeping the back cast high, the
left thumb is always in the correct position, and with a little more
strength the forward snap has a lot of promise. The biggest problem
is the line hand. My faithful lifetime friend who shifts cars
flawlessly, pulls triggers at just the right moment and earned me a
living for more than 40 years has trouble just keeping tension on the
line and hauling is out of the question at this point. Who would have
thought it? ~ Mac Miller
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