(Part 3, September 8-14, 1997)
“Analyze What You’re Doing”
"Watch your line, rod, reel, and hand at all degrees of the cast. Put a name on each element of your cast. If something isn’t working, don’t try harder; CHANGE IT! Trying harder could even make it worse; change something! Maybe just the placement of your feet. Now, here’s a question for you: Are you casting the flyrod or the fly line? Is your flyrod a lever to sweep the line around, or is it simply a somewhat stiff part of the line? Analyze what you’re doing. Have someone watch you. Tell them that you are going to try to cast just like the books say. Nice tight controlled loops; front and back. Powerful stop on the back cast. The correct amount of reach-back drift. No slack in your pick-up as you come forward. A good accelerating forward motion to a solid stop. Wham! The perfect cast! You can do it! We need more good casters, you may be one of them. Becoming aware; putting names on each of the actions of casting, studying and improving each; that’s the start of teaching yourself to cast well. Till next week, remember . . .
Part 1, “The Perfect Cast”
Part 2, “Are You At Your Best?”
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Originally published c. 2003 on Fly Anglers Online by James Castwell.