Went out to the lake today during my lunch hour. It
had rained and the temperature was down.
Also the wind was blowing at about 15 mph and I thought
with the wave action discoloring the water a little some
fish might come in to look for food.
One place on the lake has a 100 yard long area that slowly
slopes out over about 40 feet to the drop-off. The water
then drops fairly fast into the 20 to 25 foot range. I
thought that I might be able to cast out far enough to
interest a few fish. This is a bit of a challenge for me
because I have trouble casting very far into the wind.
I had been out for about 10 minutes when a gentleman came
down and asked if I was catching anything. I told him that
I had not by that time but I thought there could be fish
feeding then.
He watched me for a couple of minutes and then asked me
if I would be insulted if he made a few suggestion on my
casting. I laughed and said that a lot of folks had made
suggestions and many of them were not polite or even repeatable.
He asked if he could use my other rod to show me what he
wanted to suggest. I told him to go ahead. He threw about
40 more feet of line than I ever have every thrown. I watched
him and noticed that he really snapped his wrist forward right
at the end of the cast. I ask him about this and he said he
found it helped when casting into the wind.
I watched again and this time when he cast he nailed a gill
of about 11". He thought that was great fun. He then watched
what I was doing a made a few more suggestions. One thing is
that I now drop the rod about 20 degrees away from vertical
to cast. Believe it or not it increased my distance and my
accuracy. I was throwing the line about 60 feet into the wind.
This was a revelation.
As we were both casting we started to catch gills and bass
when we were near the drop off. It was great fun to do this.
He had a good time also. He also caught a 16" channel cat
which was a first for him.
I tried to find out his name and where he was from but
he would not tell me. He thanked me for letting him use
the rod to catch some fish. I thanked him a great deal
for his instruction to me.
I wanted to give him credit for doing this but he said
it is one of the things that fly fishers do and to pass it on.
My casting is now much better than it was due to this
gentleman. It was a great surprise to me. He did say
that he has taught casting for many years.
If you hear this story from him please let me know his
name and thank him again for me.
Enjoy the water. ~ Rick
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