"Wayne Knight" wrote in message
ps.com...

riverman wrote:

Thats true, but having a good clear backcast doesn't hurt. Anyway, at
the
time I was a medicre caster, and changing from mudboots to hip waders
did
enable me to cover water that was more than a foot deep. It didn't
help me
catch any more fish, bit at least I could spook more.


Grasshopper, if you make a hard stop at the 12:00 position on the
backcast, this will often cause your back cast to go straight up,
sometimes referred to as a steeple cast. Of more import on the forward
cast is the ability to generate line speed and shoot the line. WF lines
are better for this and a single haul often helps.

As far as covering more water and getting nothing forward, you have
proved once again the ability to mend and control your line while
stream fishing is more important than the ability to boom a cast
regardless of the distance to your target.


Charlie Choc and I had this discussion at the SJMiniClave last year (just he
and I for a coupla days). I'm familiar with the steeple cast, and employ it
often when I have trees hard against my back on streams and there is too
much interference on the water for a roll cast, but even at my intermediate
level of casting, I can not get as good a load on the rod with that as I can
with a regular backcast. And my effective casting distance is about half, at
best.

Charlie and I were discussing the relationship between the direction of the
line during the backcast in comparison to the frontcast. He says (as does
pretty much everyone) that its irrelevant, as the line moves away from your
rod perpendicular to whatever direction it was going when it stopped, with
no loss of loading. I thought that there was something about this that must
disobey the rules about momentum and moment arm. The challenge we gave
ourselves was to make a V-shaped cast; where the line went up at 2:00 on the
backcast, and up at 10:00 on the forward cast. I found that it just didn't
work that well...there were loops and the end of the line flopped every
which way. However, if the backcast is directly opposite the forward cast:
3:00 and 9:00 (note: these are the directions the LINE is going, not the
rod), then there is a more complete loading of the rod on the backcast, and
a cleaner, further forward cast.

Your thoughts, Master?

--riverm-H^H^H^H^grasshopper