Casting illusions

Ever wondered why fly casting is so gracious? The fluid motion of the fly rod, the perfectly formed loop of the fly line and the slipping sound of the fly line through the guides. Most people wonder what makes a good cast a beautiful cast. It's the balanced equipment and C O N T R O L. Control of the fly rod, control of your casting motion and control of the whole casting process in your HEAD!

I've read and watched quite some books and videos on fly casting (Lefty Kreh, Joan Wulff, Ed Jawarowski, Doug Swisher, Mel Krieger). They all have one thing common: casting is approached as a physical movement of the casting arm. This sounds quite logical, but the thing is, casting (or any other physical activity) isn't just a physical movement but more of a translation of a mental setting.

Try this: try to walk on a one-brick wide side of the pavement while looking down. You'll notice that because you're focussing on the walking (one foot in front of the other), the whole walk looks wobbly. Now look far ahead and walk. The whole movement is much smoother. That's because your mind is set to go to the point you're looking at. Visualization is the name of this game.

This new, at least for me, approach of casting is an eye opener. After reading Jason Borger's book "Nature of fly casting" I got this "ahah!" moment. I never thought about casting this way, but I noticed that often I was 'practicing' the casting motion without holding a fly rod: visualization of the casting motion. The other innovative approach of Jason's book is to split the whole movement of a casting stroke in to modules. At first sight this looks like an over-scientification of the art of casting, but in fact it shows you the building blocks of a complex casting stroke. It's surprising to see how completely different casts share the same modules in certain phases of the casting stroke.

I think this book isn't a book for beginners, it's not a book just for casting experts either. But if you want to understand the fundamental reasons behind a perfectly executed cast, go have a look.