I am and have been review copious amount of Videos of beginning casters to Advanced and I have noticed a trend
This is you quest.
What is the most common fault among Speycaster.
I would like to know you opinion on this.

by far the most common fault I've seen is not bringing the instructor a couple of good local microbrews. At the end of every course I always ask "Did anyone bring any beer?" and I usually get blank stares.

that and slack. There's a bunch of different ways you can introduce slack into a cast, and most of us do it, and it costs us power and efficiency.

Not controlling the lift.......trying to tear the line of the water.........a bit like Gordon Armstrong and Scott Mackenzie.

throwing the anchor and nailing the instructor in the face?????

so i would venture a guess and go along the lines of Dana and WG and say anchor placement or that dreadful too long of a pause on the top where the d loop just crashes on your 6.

Vinnie

not staying "connected" , usually because of too much power applied early in the cast. This introducing the aforementioned slack and leads to bad things.

I'm with Willie on this one ... nothing shows you how bad your 'lift' actually really is until you start using full and intermed. sink spey lines.

I'm with Dana, slack is it.

The lift argument makes sense if we are talking some casts like the Single Spey. For those heathen casters among us that occasionally introduce other casts into our toolbox, I would think the answer lies elsewhere. The staying connected and pause at top both seem like contributors of slack so Dana seems on the right track.

From a fishing (and casting) point, I would say overcasting. This includes casting too far for the situation and attempting to cast further than one's mechanics and skills allow.

Slack followed by what I call the dominate-single hand caster (to much top hand). Even though a speycasters puts two hands on the rod, the top hand does ALL the work. Klem

Klem,

That dominant top hand is definitely my problem. Any advice on how to shake that ? I've had other opinions but always open to suggestions.

Gillie

Hmm I would not call too much top hand an error. Lots of good casters out there use 90% top hand and do fairly well. Maybe I am misunderstanding your statement.

That being said I think moving towards a 50/50 stroke (or even more bottom hand than top) but I think that moves into the realm of personal preference and not a fault.

-sean

Am definatly in with those of you in the Slack Camp and we know who you are. Will toss out another issue, a slight raise of the rod when finishing the forming of the "D Loop", or what ever loop style you have chosen. See this a lot in people who have been casting a while. It is known as dead line drop, if you don't, kills the cast as we have gotten to know it.


Leroy Teeple
G.Loomis Pro-Staff
FFF THCI & CI

As a newbie I find that my errors are usually lifting WAY to high, trying to throw WAY too much line, (because it is FUN! ), or starting the forward cast too early or late. I'm still at the stage of learning the switch/single spey...

I'm thinking I should start learning some other casts so I'd guess trying to learn other casts before mastering the switch and single spey is probably another beginner problem.

I'll go another direction entirely...

The #1 fault of beginners is failing to make a good stop of the rod during the forward spey. Don't have a good guess about the most common problem with advanced casters. Rushing--going too fast?

--Bill

The stop is critical to forming the loop. To stop a double-handed rod, the caster must stop the butt of the rod for a clean, crisp stop. The single handers comes to the party using the top hand for everything in his casting motion: steering, gas pedal and brake pedal. Sure the long stroke boys use 90% top hand but they do a push/pull at the end to the stop and use the bottom hand to add bit of acceleration on the back casts and just before the finally front stop. They are moving a lot of line and need all the tip travel possible, so that top hand does a lot of work.
Gillie,
What worked for me to get the bottom hand into play: Find your stop position then freeze your top hand position. Next use your bottom hand only and extend the bottom hand out away from your tummy and few inches (4" or 5") now pull back to your tummy with a fast motion so the tip flips the line forwards. Work on getting a tight loop that travels down to the water (this is not a cast just form a loop that has energy to travel to the water). This is the best exercise to get your bottom hand involved with the casting stroke and will develop a good, independent stop with the bottom hand.

The more I become involved with spey casting the more beatuiful all styles and casting strokes become; from the long strokes to the underhand caster it is all graceful and wonderful to watch. Klem