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Date: March 12, 2007 at 11:43:21
From: ken, [pool-70-20-4-145.prov.east.verizon.net]
Subject: Line speed


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Date: March 11, 2007 at 12:39:48
From: ken, [pool-70-20-4-145.prov.east.verizon.net]
Subject: Re: line speed ?





A word of explanation for my strong position on this topic.

For many many years I have been doing a free Tuesday night fishing gathering. Sometimes 70 people come sometimes 20 and it happens every week from April through December and continues in an informal way through the winter. Hundreds of different people come each year. We tie flies and often go fishing if the weather permits after the tying.

In all these years with all these people the one outstanding thing that is true is that many if not most of them are trying to fish with rods and lines that are not functional.

They think that they are doing it wrong and feel like someday they will be able to cast and are apologetic for their lack of skill in casting.

Over and over again they say, "I cannot cast very well but I want to. What should I do?"
They often tell me about some video or class they took and how well the instructor did it and how they have to take more classes or buy a new rod or..

They do not know how to do it and they are embarrassed by their lack of proficiency.
It is a pandemic of the casting blues.

They only way I can help them cast is to let them use a different rod that is balanced and show them what a rod will do for them if it has the right line on it.

If I try to explain rod line balance their eyes glaze over because the concept is foreign to them. They have been brainwashed into true believer status by the true believers of high line spped casting religion who are closed in thier thinking to anything other than what they have been taught.
Tehy do not want to risk their status as people who are the priests of this knowledge adn do not want to risk the investment they made to become priests and the money they make and the status and identity they have as casting hero's even if it only is in the fly shop the work out of. If they have a patch on their hat of some sort it is fatal.
They, "ain't," gonna change their view because of self interest..
The only way I can break the high line speed trance
is to give them a balanced rod and line and show them how to make one backcast and shoot the line effortlessly. That experience of seeing their line flow out effortlessly and land fifty to sixty to seventy feet or more depending on their openness to trying something without digging in their heals and refusing to try usually leaves them with their mouth open and a, "Holy Shit," of some sort usually follows.

Then they say something like; "What line sould I get for my rod one size higher?"
They are too timid to go three or four weight higher even if I tell them because they have been indoctranated not to break the high line speed rules - so completely that the emotional (irrational) trance comes back on them like a cloud.

I will take their rod and put another reel on it with a line that will work on it. Sometimes it is five weights higher then their rod calls for and I cast it then let them cast.
"Will it break? Is the guarantee voided?"

"Do you want to cast I ask?"

Some say yes and others are afraid to break the rules as taught by the casting cartel.

The ones that are afraid to break the rules have no problem using a five hundred grain sinking line on the same rod but are afraid to use a four hundred grain floating line (a twelve or thirteen or whatever) because of the label on the rod which says nine weight or eight weight.
They will not try a heavier line on their rod if they think it is outside the rules they have been taught. YEt they will praise how well the five hundred grain sinking like casts.
It is just simple physics.
This kind of trance thinking is irrational and so silly.
They have been actually been brainwashed into a dysfunctional system.

I do this with hundreds of people a year and many of them learn to cast right at that moment with no further lessons except the one of balancing their twelve weight rod that has a label on it that says nine weight with a twelve weight line.
A solution to fly casting that is simple elegant and functional.
Fly fishermen who listen to the high line speed guru's have had thieir minds taken captive. It is that simple

They have to break out of the trance andlearn to trust their own ability and think outside of the box for themselves and throw away their dependence on casting guru's that are taking them for a ride out of ignorant self interest even if they like those people.
The earth is not flat even if everyone including the magazine writers say that it is and high line speed casting is not fishing casting even if everyone says it is - either. It is only applicable for tournament casting - Period!
I care about people being able to cast and fish easily not about making it harder for them so I can profit off them and their imposed religious beliefs and the worship of high line speed casting saints that demand that they be looked up too.

It is a false belief system just like saying that the earth is the center of the solar system.
The sun is by the way. People once were burned at the stake for sying that out loud.
High line speed casting is not the central truth of the casting solar system - balanced tackle is and always has been.

I am finished for now. Nothing new under the sun. Tyranny of belief even in something as simple as fly casting is dangerous.



The rod used in a five weight casting contest is a nine weight or an eight weight with a five weight line. The stiffness of the rod holds the line in the air on multiple backcasts through line speed at lengths of eighty or more feet if needed.

Then the line is shot after most of it is already in the air being held there by the stiffness of the rod, the movements of the caster to keep up the speed of line and the "Sports car," line shoots forty feet or more and a cast of 120 feet or more is made.

It is simple tournament casting high line speed methodology but has nothing to do with fishing casting at all.
There is no short cast, no medium cast and no practical long cast ever made.
This fact was once well know to fly fishermen but disregarded by the modern industry and they revived the method when the fly fishing boon hit several years back.
All voices of caution to this method were drowned out by the marketers, their celebrity spokespeople who becasme the casting editors in the magazines and by their high tech rod advertisements in the media.
They disregarded traditional casting wisdom as inconvienient to make a buck and didn't know any better because they - did not - know any better.
They shot fly fishing growth in the foot by making tournament casting methods the whole focus of fly fishing. They took the low hangiing fruit and did not give anything back of value.
They killed the goose.
They hijacked fly fishing and replaced its history with marketing jargon like casting to the next time zone etc, and in the process made high line casting into a hurdle and an idol that had to be accepted and mastered before one could fish correctly.
"YOU have to learn how to cast this way before you can fish correctly." That created the casting industry with all the certification crap.
It was pure bullshit.

Those people who could not or did not want to spend their time casting that way instead of fishing simply left fly fishing and took up easier ways to fish or left fishing all together and I can understand that.

They created a house of cards that fell apart and refuse to admit it even now.

There is too much money, ego and too many certified careers at stake for them to let it go.
They have taken a very complex and varied traditional art form and reduced it to a simplistic one size fits all approach promoted csting hero's and in the process have done great harm to a lot of trusting people.
They have broken trust for gain.
It was ignorance and the arrogant refusal to acknowledge traditional fundamentals of casting that did not fit into their short sighted marketing plans.
What was their marketing plan?

A new stiffer and faster model of a nine foot nine weight rod every year. People got discouraged and left fly fishing and the boom bubble burst.

High line speed was its demise. One size did not fit all at all. Even now you cannot find a rod that fishes and mends well or is long enough and strong enough in hoop strength to be dependable in the field.
Pool cues for everyone and shut up and and listen to the rod engineers as they know best even if they only fish once a year.

Pure insanity is sitting on the fly casting throne.


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