[4sallypat]

A most wonderful event hosted by the Long Beach Casting Club in sunny Southern California! :smile2:

This event pulled in some great competitors from SOR: Whitney Gould, Mike Ivy, Jim Ansite, Tommy Aarkvisla (flew in from Norway) :surprise:

Being a member for years with the LBCC, spey anglers were the minority, but last weekend we were the majority!
I have never seen so much renewed interest in spey angling.
First time competing and loved the camaraderie among the competitors - especially help from the Open division pros like Tommy A and Jim A.

We pulled out the SH round casting hoops and replaced with a casting box, distance markers, and flooded the pond up to 2' of water!

This is a must go to event - it was super friendly, pro novice event that differs a lot from the GGAC SOR. Everyone was so helpful with the nervous novice class entrants.

Vendors from Bruce & Walker, Whitney Gould, and Poppy from Red Shed drove all the way over from Idaho to put their great rods, reels, T Shirts and famous Gaelforce lines up for sale!

Ended up spending a lot more than I wanted: $25 bottle of 12year old rum from silent auction, $100 Gaelforce ESS trout spey line for my 5wt, and a new G Loomis Pro 4X 10wt 15' rod for next year's competition!

A great time was definitely had by all!

Next year can't wait to compete in the Intermediate class because I can't do the Novice again....:tsk_tsk:

https://vimeo.com/253436985

Here's Poppy from Red Shed at the event:

Women's division competing:

 

[meb]

I spent a few hours on Sunday watching some of the finalists. Fun event. Enjoyed talking to a number of casters and Poppy from the Red Shed. Also, enjoyed casting his bamboo rods.

Mark

 

[4sallypat]

I spent a few hours on Sunday watching some of the finalists. Fun event. Enjoyed talking to a number of casters and Poppy from the Red Shed. Also, enjoyed casting his bamboo rods.

Mark

:grin2:
Yes - it was a fun event and learned a lot!

Poppy from Red Shed was amazing - knows so much about spey fishing that I am tempted now to try out the Clearwater river in his state for some summer steelies...

Will report back on my new 15' rod I picked up from Poppy and see how it casts a 63' mid belly line!

Here is short clip of how the wind blew the 63' line around and dropped me into 6th place the first day:
https://vimeo.com/253690714

Without the wind on a calm day, I have practiced with the line and have cast 130' and more.
I found out looking at the video that while my setup was fine, the firing of the line lacked the abrupt stop, creating the large tailing loops.
Watched the open division competitors and saw their tight loops cut thru the wind.

 

[bender]

Nasty wind!

Quite many competitors cast without a stop and continue accelerating until the line is released and then slow down so that rod does not hit water too hard. Principle there is to achieve higher line speed when there does not come intentional slowing down. Line loop is kept narrow using an overhang and then rod tip path which inevitably turns down does not open the line loop too much because there is a length of light line between rod tip and line rear end. Obviously then there comes more out of rod straightening because line release can be delayed. Rod will straighten without a stop anyway!

Overhang also lessens the Tailing Loop which comes because of too abrupt acceletarion in the beginning of the cast and most likely the TL which come when stop is done too early/high so it acts like a shock absorber

Esa

 

[4sallypat]

Nasty wind!

Quite many competitors cast without a stop and continue accelerating until the line is released and then slow down so that rod does not hit water too hard. Principle there is to achieve higher line speed when there does not come intentional slowing down. Line loop is kept narrow using an overhang and then rod tip path which inevitably turns down does not open the line loop too much because there is a length of light line between rod tip and line rear end. Obviously then there comes more out of rod straightening because line release can be delayed. Rod will straighten without a stop anyway!

Overhang also lessens the Tailing Loop which comes because of too abrupt acceletarion in the beginning of the cast and most likely the TL which come when stop is done too early/high so it acts like a shock absorber

Esa

Yes, I noticed the Open division pro casters did not stop the rod as I have been instructed to do. They keep rotating the rod until it is almost parallel to the water.

Is that because the open division caster use a competition rod that automatically produces the stop ???

I noticed the competitors use the CND, Bruce & Walker or ACR Comp rods - how do they flex compared to regular fishing rods ??

My instructor said to not allow any overhang, but instead keep about 0.5m of the head in the guides as I was learning how to cast the line....
My rod is an Echo TR 10wt 15' and it is stiff - does changing to a different rod produce better loops ??

 

[bender]

Yes, I noticed the Open division pro casters did not stop the rod as I have been instructed to do. They keep rotating the rod until it is almost parallel to the water.

Is that because the open division caster use a competition rod that automatically produces the stop ???

I noticed the competitors use the CND, Bruce & Walker or ACR Comp rods - how do they flex compared to regular fishing rods ??

My instructor said to not allow any overhang, but instead keep about 0.5m of the head in the guides as I was learning how to cast the line....
My rod is an Echo TR 10wt 15' and it is stiff - does changing to a different rod produce better loops ??

Obviously it has come better to accelerate line longer. If rod is stopped the line acceleration can become slower.

Stopping rod abruptly narrows the line loop but line speed suffers. Sometimes narrow line loop is better like when casting to strong head wind but when casting to tail wind high line speed is better and line loop can come wider.

Rod tip pulls the line and when rod tip path turns more and more down towards the end of the cast it pulls the line down as well and line loop opens wider when line rear end directs down and the rest of the line goes forward. So casting having any line inside the rod is negative but of course there are fishing conditions when it does not matter. You can test the effect of line weight casting without line shoot and when you do the stop the line inside rod increase rod counter flex and line loop opens. Although you shoot the line the line mass which shoots out of rod increase rod counter flex and slightly increase line loop size.

In this picture there are two 15ft blanks, Bruce&Walker SOR Special and CTS Affinity Plus when rod butts are mounted parallel using 18 inch spacing and on tip they have 400g weights ~0.9lbs hanging. B&W is stiffer and has full action. CTS is softer, bends more on its tip so it has tip action which is fun when Scandi casting.

Competitors like full action rods but there are several reasons. Some say the D-loop comes better aligned 180 decrees to following forward cast and consistency on back cast comes better and without good back cast there can not come good forward cast.

Obviously full action rod accelerates long line better and it might be because rod span stays longer when rod bends. Rod lever effect is biggest line accelerator. Perhaps full action rod gives best acceleration towards the end of cast where it accelerates already quite fast line and when water anchor has aleady come light.

Full action rod tip is also heavier and blank weight has positive effect to line speed but this effect comes clear when there comes a stop. There is similar effect in rod straightening as there is in fly line loop and whip loop and blank weight is significant when line speed is produced but heavy blank accelerates slower and bends more because of its higher Moment of Inertia so too heavy blank is not good. Although it is possible to cast very long using old and heavy rods they are not nice when competition practice sessions needs to come often and sometimes long too.

When rods evolve they become lighter and light rod "lever" accelerates faster and then line accelerates faster too and line velocity comes faster although light rod might straighten slower but overall efficiency comes better when caster strength is one of the major limiting factors. So "fast recovery" seems just market talk

Obviously using new (read: light) rods it has come better not to stop anymore because light rod accelerates line faster when it is accelerated longer instead of stopped because light rod straightens slower and the stop would come partially wasted?

Rod "spring effect" does not have much influence and it is bit complicated. Stiff rod straightens faster but stiffer rod accelerates line faster as well because stiff rod bends less but caster strength can become the limiting factor and too stiff rod is not good.

Best effect what comes from rod bend is when it makes possible to accelerate line using straighter line path!

Best way to research rod and blank characteristics is to measure Stiffness and Action Angle using the Common Cents System and weighting rod sections or even better measure the Moment Of Inertia but experienced caster can character rod quite well test casting it but CCS is easy and accurate and there come values which can be compared to other rods.

Esa