The Invisible Pulley in Fly Casting — FFI Continuing Education and Spey Casting Fundamentals
The Fly Fishing Northwest FFI Expo in Albany, OR was a great event! I left Bryson at about 3:00 AM on the 8th and drove one of the curviest highways in the country—the Tail of the Dragon on US 129—to the Knoxville airport. I didn't pass another car until the town of Maryville, TN. There were many large groups of whitetail on the road, and one cougar leaped across the road in Stecoah Valley on Highway 28. The drive was full of wildlife at 3:30 in the morning along Fontana Lake, with the band “New Grass Revival” turned up loud and a thermos of java for the road! It may not work for everyone, but that definitely keeps me awake.
After a long flight to Portland, OR, it all went by way too fast. It always seems to go that way when you're around a bunch of great casting folks who love to fish! Right after we touched down, my friend Al Buhr picked me up at PDX. We headed across the river to see Tim Rajeff and check out Rajeff Sports. He quickly grabbed a bunch of rods and put them on a machine so we could check out the strain and where they broke.
I picked up an Echo Gecko rod for my five-year-old Connor. The MPR extender (mini practice rods) that turns it into a two-handed rod will be fun to play with indoors. I also grabbed a new instructor rod that's bright white in color, which I plan to use for camera work. Tim will be out here for the SE Conclave in Helen, GA toward the end of April, which will be great!
Intruder Paradise with Fly Tying
The tying tables were loaded with salmon and chrome tyers creating super flashy flies. There were many varieties of Intruders for the winter steelhead run. The tube fly revolution is big in the area. Many great tiers from around the Northwest were there, and it was wonderful to catch up with some old friends and meet new ones too! The tubes around here offer many advantages overall. I like the idea of not having to waste loads of extra hooks and tungsten on patterns.
I also met Dave Dozer at the show, who makes wonderful bamboo rods. I had fun trying out many of the various actions on the casting pond with Mary Ann Dozer. I'll try to get some pictures of the classes up in the coming days too! Thanks to Dwight Klemmin and Al Buhr for making it all happen over the weekend. It was great seeing so many familiar faces at the expo!
Continuing Education Class for Casting Instructors
The continuing education class on Sunday was great but went by way too fast. The Continuing Education for the FFI was an idea that David Lambert and I came up with around 1995. You can cover many topics when you get that many great casters together. After the class, I got a wonderful introduction to Spey casting the two-handed rod out on the pond from Whitney Gould. It was great overall, though I quickly learned how awkward my bottom hand was for making casts! It will take a lot of work for this to become a natural and consistent flow for me. Whitney taught me where these ideal positions should be for the overall stroke, but I found it difficult to make them all come together at once!
Spey Casting in the Northwest
While the dynamics are essentially identical between single and double-handed casting, I found the two-handed stroke to be a great lesson in humility! It made me feel like a beginner all over again, since my body wasn't in the correct positions during the casting stroke because it was new to me. The bottom hand plays a large role in setting everything up because it has to flow into the correct position. Just like tracking issues with single-hand casting, the double-handed rod has to be ingrained in your motor skills throughout the stroke.
I'm looking forward to the practice sessions in the coming months! The mini Spey sessions at home have been a blast as I switch my hands around. I can see big payoffs from doing this on the water down the road, depending on the severity of wind and obstacles.
Invisible Pulley and Fly Casting
The class covered one of the secrets of fly casting, which I call “Understanding the Invisible Pulley”. In fly casting, we direct energy for either a cast or a setup for the placement of the line. The pulley concept is one I use to explain where we accent the force for either one. Most new fly casters spend all of their time throwing line. Casting a loop is different than throwing a ball to direct energy. The circles and figure-eight motions used in fly casting can take advantage of varied power. Use your imagination of the invisible pulley: rod in power followed by rod out of power. I learned this language from my friend Al Buhr around 2008. northwest ffi expo albany
This is no doubt language for the poets! The engineers remain baffled how the rod can be in motion and be out of power! Remember, it's all about intent. We accent varying amounts of force when making casts—actually, various throttle positions for accelerating the rod. This simple concept opens up a myriad of opportunities for fly casting. It also places your rod position during the ebb and flow of motion to be in the correct setup. I'll use the same outline that we presented in Oregon for the SE Conclave in Helen, GA for the continuing education program toward the end of April.