The end of the cast is always going to have a big influence on the distance that you are going to achieve. This is the stage of the cast where we are about to fire the lead towards our target. To gain the greatest distance, we must have the highest lead speed at this point, and very importantly we most utilise all the energy in the compressed rod that we have transferred into it, through the earlier stages of the cast. Fly casting demonstrates what we are trying to achieve with a carp rod very well. When fly casting the rod is progressively loaded with a long ‘stroke’. This stroke allows us to deeply load a fly rod, it begins slowly and we increase the speed to the fastest point at the end of the cast, this compresses the rod and energy is stored in the blank. This energy has to be released efficiently so it can be utilised by the fly line but how do we do this? A good fly caster knows how to utilise this energy and transfer it to the fly line that’s why it goes a long way, but somebody with a lesser technique struggles for distance. The usual reason for this is the fly caster with the lesser technique has either slowed down before the release causing the rod to decompress and lose its stored energy. Or he hasn’t correctly stopped the rod, this leads to wasted energy and poor transference of stored energy. If we think about what is going on before we cast the rod has no inherent compression or energy to cast our lead weight, we have to apply this energy to the rod. Through the cast we are applying more energy and compression; the faster the lead goes the more energy is created. Towards the end of the cast we have a rod that has stored all of the energy we have created during the casting action, ready to be unleashed. We need to transfer all that energy rather than waste it. The way to do this is very simple it’s a case of just stopping the rod, by doing this effectively all the compression and energy we created has to go somewhere. We have stopped the momentum, the compressed rod now wants to straighten, as it does it fires the lead as fast as it can towards the target, faster stiffer rods do this more effectively. Once the lead has gone you will often feel the rod pulling you towards the ground, this is the rod over recovering and any energy in the rod dissipating. This over recovery can have cause frap up problems, so once the rod is stopped, having softer hands and a looser grip can prevent this This is part of the cast can have a huge effect on casting distance and really pays not to overlook it.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 08:54:51 +0000