Casting tips

Came across tip with an acronym to help remember it.



Casting Tip of the Month - Substance Versus Style

courtesy: Atlanta Fly Fishing School

Question: After attending the Shallow Water Expo I’m confused. I watched several great casters who made casting look effortless, but they cast so differently. After experimenting with different styles my casting is all screwed up. HELP! Is there one way that is better (or easier) to learn?

Answer:

You’ve asked the age-old question of substance versus style. Well, it might not be ages old, but since the era of bamboo casting styles have been-a-changing. With the advent of graphite, rods are lighter, stiffer, stronger, and are capable of casting a greater length of line. This has resulted in a wide variety of casting styles with most designed to extend the length of the casting stroke for distance casting. Most of the great casters have similar styles when casting short distances for accuracy, but they vary significantly in how they cast long distances. I suggest you watch as many expert styles as you can, taking ideas from all of them, and put it together in a way that works for you. Your casting will only suffer temporarily while adjusting to a different style as long as you are keeping within the mechanical laws and principles that govern casting. These principles are the same for everyone (substance), but how you apply them is uniquely you (style). I have a pneumonic to help remind me of the mechanical laws when I am teaching casting schools. It is P.S. SAPS; The P.S. is like the reminder at the end of a letter and the SAPS is like sticky tree saps. Together it makes something you better remember to stick to.


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