Long Distance Spin Casting
You read up on it. You become sure you can do it. After all, hitting a good tee shot seems a lot harder than casting a spinning rod.
So you march to the lake with visions of hooking and landing a faraway lunker. You set up your fishing rod and step up to the bank and cast. Your lure, however, flies off to the right and not very far. You cast again and again. The results don’t change.
Golf didn’t seem this frustrating! So you think all you need is some practice.
But after hours and hours of it, you’re still in the same, going-nowhere casting boat, so to speak.
How discouraging! Even makes you think about giving up fishing.
Yes, I know!
But instead of giving up, I wondered, what if there’s a lot more to casting a spinning rod than what I read? What if I experiment with using other techniques, the techniques of throwing a ball and of casting a fly rod?
So I began a year of casting trials and errors. Lots of errors!
Then finally it happened: consistently, I felt the beauty of loading the rod, of watching the lure streak over the water, and land right where I wanted it to.
Here’s how I got there.
THE STANCE. I want to use one that helps me shift my weight so I get as much leverage as possible, and helps me increase the length of my casting stroke, and therefore the bend, or load, in the rod. I’m right handed, so I put my left foot forward and point it straight ahead. I turn my right foot outward about thirty degrees. My feet are shoulder-width apart. The front of my right foot is in-line with the front of my left heel. (If my right foot is too far back or too far pointed outward, I’ll lock my hips and not be able to fully rotate by body and shift all my weight.) I square my hips and shoulders to the target, slightly bend my knees and shift my weight to the ball of my front foot. My right heel is off the ground. I flex my thumb and put it on the top of the rod handle. I hold the rod loosely and point it anywhere from nine o’clock to ten-thirty. My elbow is even with the front of my waist. The lure hangs down about a foot.
THE POWER GRIP. I start with two fingers in front of the reel stem and two behind. I pick up the line with my right index finger, and then move my hand back so only my line finger is in front of the stem. Next, I pull the line up and back, then press my fingertip against the stem, but not against the line. (I like to feel the weight of the lure to cast it accurately.)
I hold the line this way for the same reason a good fly caster doesn’t let slack form in his fly line: to keep constant tension on the line so as soon as I start the cast the lure pulls on the rod, and therefore fully loads the rod. Holding the line the conventional way made it impossible for me to keep enough tension on the line. Even worse, I found it very difficult to keep my index finger from prematurely straightening and releasing the line.
No wonder my casts were short, and high and off to the side.
(Until I got my timing down, I used a golf glove or a Band-Aid to prevent the line from cutting into my finger.)
MOVING THE ROD. I initially assumed the faster I moved the rod the farther I’d cast. For two reasons I was wrong. First: a pitcher achieves maximum power and velocity only when his arm moves in sync with his body rotation. If his arm gets ahead of his body he becomes an “arm thrower.”
No wonder major league pitchers seem to throw as if not using all their might! Maximum arm speed is reached only at the release.
Fly casters will tell you the same thing, and also for the second reason: to fully load the rod it must accelerate. If it moves too quickly the speed of the line, or in our case the lure, moves almost as fast as the rod, and therefore doesn’t fully pull on and load the rod. The cast dies well short of its target.
(A stiffer rod loads better with a shorter, faster stroke, but the stroke must still be accelerated.)
THE CAST AND POWER SNAP. I begin the cast by opening the bail, raising my elbow and slowly accelerating the rod up and back. As I move the rod, I rotate my shoulders backwards and shift my weight to the heel of my back foot. When the rod points to about one o’clock I break my wrist back. My elbow continues to point forward. (If it points out to the side, I’ll not be able finish the cast without lowering the rod tip from the target line, and prematurely unloading the rod.) When my forearm points to about one o’clock, and my upper arm points parallel to the water or slightly upward, and the rod points parallel to the water or slightly downward, I immediately and quickly start my forward cast.
(During the back cast I never move the rod too fast. If I do, the lure will bounce at the end of the cast and prematurely unload the rod.)
My eyes are focused on an imaginary target in the sky, about forty-five degrees above the water, but higher if the wind is from behind or lower if it is from in front.
Leading with my elbow, rotating my shoulders and shoulders I accelerate the rod and soon move the tip in a straight line that points to the target and move the rod butt at a right angle to the line. (Fully rotating our hips and shoulders allows us to increase the length we can move—and therefore load—the rod at this angle.)
When my arm is about three-quarters extended, I increase my grip pressure and my acceleration and shift all my weight to my front foot. I reach maximum arm speed then, as if I’m hammering a nail, I snap my wrist without lowering the rod tip from the target line. Abruptly, I stop the rod.
My front leg is now straight. My right shoulder is all the way forward. My arm is fully extended. My weight is on the ball and toes of my front foot. I hold the rod still so I don’t lower the tip and pull the line down.
AS I DESCRIBE ALL THIS. Learning to cast a spinning rod seems a lot easier than it was. Well maybe if, like most skilled golfers, I had learned the right techniques from the start it would’ve been.
But better late than never.
I’m a native New Yorker. My writing has appeared in many publications, including The Flyfisher, Flyfishing & Tying Journal and Fishing And Hunting News. I’m also the author of the historical novel, The Fly Caster Who Tried To Make Peace With the World.
Much of my writing is about the techniques of spin and fly casting and about the spirituality/recovery of fly fishing. I often fish the streams of Westchester, the piers of New York City and the lakes of Central Park.