Rod-arm mechanics

Rod-Arm

Mechanics

Mechanics

Until now we’ve spoken only of how the fly rod works and what it does during the cast. Now we must talk of what the rod arm does dur- ing the cast, for it’s the rod arm’s responsibility to make the fly rod op- erate properly. In all situations, fly casters will stand or fall according to the pro- ficiency of their rod arm. Graceful, effortless, precise fly casting is the result of a well-developed set of rod-arm mechanics. Awkward, laborious, inaccurate fly casting is the result of poor rod-arm me- chanics. The vast majority of the casting problems I see ultimately can be attributed to poor rod-arm mechanics. All the principal gains you’ll make as a fly caster—including gains in distance, power, and accuracy—will come through refining your rod-arm mechanics. I may toss this out in only a few sentences, but I assure you these words are the summation of an education dearly paid for: your rod- arm mechanics will make—or break—your cast.

The Grip

The Grip

There’s nothing glamorous about the way an angler grips a fly rod, which is why, I believe, many fly-fishers forsake this early in their learning and simply hold the rod however feels comfortable or natu- ral to them. However, the way you hold the rod is critical. Gripping the rod properly makes the most of your rod-arm mechanics, while a poor grip can effectively destroy your cast. Proper rod grip is particu- larly important for distance casting. Indeed, I’d guess that 90 or more percent of the students who come to me wanting to learn how to double haul—double hauling is considered glamorous—would add much more distance to their cast simply by learning to hold the rod properly than they would by learning to haul.

Although I have never played golf, I can appreciate the thoughtfulness and deliberation with which good golfers set their hands upon a club. How you grip the fly rod is at least as important to your casting stroke as a professional golfer’s grip is to his swing. The average fly-fisher simply picks up a rod and begins waving it with little thought, if any, as to how the cork rests in his hand. When I conduct a casting lesson with an experienced fly-fisher, the first thing I do is ask to see his basic casting stroke, and then the first thing I look at is his grip, because that’s the first place something can go wrong with his cast. If you want to become a good fly caster, you must learn to set your hand upon the cork handle deliberately and properly, each and every time prior to the beginning of the cast. For virtually all of my fishing, freshwater as well as salt, I use a single grip. It’s known by several names. Mel Krieger calls it the key grip (that’s how I’ll refer to it in this book). Krieger also refers to it, in his popular book The Essence of Flycasting, as the extended finger grip (not to be confused with either of the grips we discuss in this section that use an extended forefinger). The key grip is known by several other names. Joan Wulff identifies it as Grip #1 in her book Joan Wulff’s Fly Casting Techniques. Chico Fernandez, in his video titled The Art of Fly Casting, calls it the handshake grip (similar to the handshake grip in tennis). The key grip is nearly identical to the left-hand grip in golf. To form the key grip, lay the rod handle across your hand at such an angle that the cork lies across the middle joint of your index finger and also across the base of your little finger. Place your thumb on top of the rod handle so that it’s in line with the spine or backbone of the rod (that is, in line with the feet of the guides on the opposite side of the rod). The pad of your thumb should be pressed against the cork, and your thumb should be flexed rather than lying flat against the cork. This puts your thumb in optimum “pushing” position, allowing you to load the rod well on the forward stroke. Placing your thumb flat against the cork, as so many fly-fishers do, will not afford you the same amount of “pushing” power as will the flexed thumb. Allowing your thumb to roll off to the side of the handle, or placing the tip of your thumb (rather than the pad) against the cork, both greatly diminish your ability to load the rod on the forward stroke. The pad of your index finger should be directly opposite the pad of your thumb on the other side of the cork handle. The index finger gives you support to help load the rod well during the back-cast stroke. Whether I’m holding the slim, cigar-shaped handle of a delicate trout rod, or the beefy full-Wells grip of a saltwater rod, the handle rests in the crook of the first joint of my index finger (that is, the joint nearest my fingertip).

To form the key grip, lay the cork across the middle joint of your index finger and also across the base of your little finger.

The key grip. The pad of the thumb is pressed against the cork, and the thumb is flexed rather than lying flat against the handle. The pad of the index finger is directly opposite the thumb on the other side of the cork. The cork handle is pushed under the fleshy pad at the inside heel of the palm.

When you look directly down uponit. the thumbnail of your rod hand, nearly all of the rod butt should be hidden from view by your forearm.

The key grip holds the cork handle primarily between the thumb and index finger, as you would hold a key to turn it in a lock. This is virtually identical to how you would use your thumb and index finger to hold the handle of a screwdriver to put torque on a screw. Two fairly common grips, both of which are much more popular with trout anglers than with saltwater fly-fishers, extend the forefinger along the rod handle. One grip places the index finger on top of the handle, directly in line with the spine or backbone of the rod, while the other lays the index finger along the side of the cork. Neither of these grips uses the index finger for support to load the rod during the back-cast stroke (which I believe becomes critical when trying to cast distance using heavier tackle), nor do they make full use of the hand’s natural strength to load the rod during the forward stroke. When you adopt the key grip, it’s critical that the cork handle is pushed up under the fleshy pad at the inside heel of your palm. With the handle pushed up under the fleshy pad, I have the sensation that my hand is “on top of” the cork rather than simply wrapped around

When you grip the rod handle properly, the rod becomes an extension of your forearm, and the rod butt will be directly in line with the underside of your forearm. That is, when you look down upon the thumbnail of your rod hand, nearly all of the rod butt will be hidden from view by your forearm. Remember that the more abruptly you can stop the rod, the more of the rod’s power gets transferred into the fly line. If you keep the rod butt in line with the underside of your forearm and push forward on the rod handle with the thumb of your rod hand as far as you can while pulling back on the cork with your lower fingers, you’ll see that the structure of your hand, wrist, and forearm create a very solid arm-rod connection. This structure forces the rod butt, at the end of the forward stroke, to stop abruptly. Gripping the rod properly creates the strongest possible link for the armrod connection. If you allow the rod handle to lie along the center of your palm at the base of your thumb (more or less along your lifeline), with the rod butt in full view as you look down upon the thumbnail of your rod hand, you’ll notice that the rod butt can waggle a bit, even when you grip the handle tightly. The arm-rod link is not nearly as strong, which means you cannot stop the rod as abruptly as you can when you keep the rod butt in line with the underside of your forearm. One-eighth inch of movement at the butt of the rod may seem insignificant, but this distance will be magnified greatly at the rod tip. The rod will stop over a much greater distance, and you’ll transfer less power from the loaded rod into the fly line. You’ll never notice the effects of this on a 30- or even a 50-foot cast, but you will notice the negative effects on your longest casts.

Where you place your hand along the length of the cork handle is a matter of preference. In most cases I prefer to keep my hand near the top of the handle. Some fly-fishers prefer to place their hand closer to the reel. Particularly if you have a heavy reel, your outfit may balance better in your hand if you grip the handle fairly close to the reel. Also, gripping the handle close to the reel will, in effect, lengthen your rod by a few inches. One word of caution about gripping the rod near the top of the handle: never place your hand so high on the handle that your thumb overhangs the crown of a full-Wells grip, or that it touches the graphite on a cigar-shaped grip or a half-Wells or western-style grip. The tendency of many beginners is to clutch the handle in a death grip. This will fatigue your hand quickly and make a twenty-minute practice session seem like torture. For most of your casting stroke, you need only to grip the rod firmly enough to keep it from moving around in your hand as you cast. As we discuss later, the only time you need to grip the rod more firmly than this is when you squeeze the handle firmly and quickly at the end of the stroke to help you stop the rod abruptly. Occasionally I’ll see a fly-fisher who has formed the bad habit of gripping the rod handle so loosely that it actually rattles back and forth in his hand while he casts. That is, the pad of his thumb loses contact with the cork during the back cast, and his index finger loses contact with the cork during the forward cast. This is perhaps the weakest—and worst—of all possible grips. I also see a good number of anglers who allow the rod handle to ro- tate in their hand during the casting sequence so that their thumb is no longer in line with the spine of the rod. This is equally bad. Once you’ve adopted your grip and begun to cast, the rod should not move in your hand; nor should any part of your hand lose contact with the grip, however briefly. A number of students complain, initially, that the key grip feels unnatural to them. My stock answer to this is that fly casting is among the most unnatural of acts. The key grip might feel strange to you at first. However, if you spend only ten or fifteen minutes a day working with this grip—not only while you’re casting, but anytime you get a moment to pick up the butt section of your rod—it will begin to feel much more comfortable and natural. As you progress as a fly caster, you’ll come to understand the advantages this grip af- fords you in terms of strength, power, support, and control. In time, you’ll wonder how you managed to cast any other way.

The Wrist

The Wrist

The wrist has two positions in fly casting: bent forward, and straight. The bent-forward wrist position is easy to find. Holding the rod

You achieve the bent-forward wrist position by pushing forward on the rod handle with your thumb while pulling back with your lower fingers. The bent-forward wrist aligns the butt of the rod parallel with the underside of your forearm.

handle with the key grip, simply push forward with your thumb as far as you can while pulling back with your lower fingers. Your wrist will naturally stop in the bent-forward position. The bent-forward wrist aligns the butt of the rod parallel with the underside of your forearm. The straight wrist position is slightly more difficult to find, but only because there is no point at which you are forced to stop, as there is when you bend your wrist forward. The straight wrist positions the butt of the rod at a 45-degree angle to the underside of your forearm. Each of your back casts will begin with your wrist in the bent-forward position (with the butt of the rod parallel with the underside of your forearm) and will end with your wrist in the straight position (with the butt of the rod at a 45-degree angle to the underside of your forearm). Each of your forward casts will begin with a straight wrist (butt of the rod at a 45-degree angle to the underside of your forearm) and will end with your wrist bent forward (butt of the rod parallel with the underside of your forearm). Many beginners, and even many experienced casters, open their wrist beyond the straight position on the back cast; that is, they bring

the rod butt out more than 45 degrees from the underside of their forearm—some to as many as 90 degrees. Much of the trouble cast- ers have with forming tight loops on the back cast is because they “break” their wrist rather than simply straightening it. The rod butt should come out from the forearm to a maximum of 45 degrees. While learning to gain control of your wrist, you may find it helpful to focus not on “opening” your wrist during the latter stage of the back-cast stroke, but rather on simply “cracking” your wrist as you stop the rod abruptly. Many beginning fly-fishers try to cast with wrist movement alone. Although you can make very short casts with only your wrist, you need to use your forearm and upper arm as well to make casts of even moderate distances. In lessons 1 and 2 we explore fully the functions of the wrist in fly casting. The Forearm and Upper ArmThe straight wrist positions the butt

of the rod at a 45-degree angle to the If you were to cast using only your wrist, moving it between the bent- underside of your forearm. forward and straight positions, you could cast a very short line fairly well. With a 9-foot rod you could handle perhaps 10 feet of fly line, plus the leader, outside the rod tip. To handle more than 10 feet of fly line outside the rod tip, you have to load the rod deeper. Think again of the bow and arrow. To shoot the arrow a very short distance, you need only to draw the bow slightly. But to shoot the arrow farther, you need to draw the bow deeper. It’s the same with the fly rod. The bend you can put into the rod with wrist movement alone is sufficient to cast only 10 feet of line. But to cast a longer line requires a deeper load on the rod. If you were to simply use more power to try to force the rod to bend deeper within the 45-degree wrist movement, you would shock the rod and destroy the cast. Indeed, many of the troubles I see with saltwater fly-fishers trying to gain distance involve trying to load the rod forcefully within a very narrow casting arc. Doing so will kill the cast every time and is responsible for countless tailing loops and “wind knots.” Opening the wrist beyond the Remember that the rod must accelerate gradually and smoothly straight position—here the caster has throughout the casting arc. To load the rod deeper without destroy-broken his wrist completely so that ing the cast, you must widen the casting arc. If you were to try to dothe rod butt is at a 90-degree angle to the underside of his forearm—will this by simply opening your wrist more than 45 degrees—that is, if make it difficult, if not impossible, for you were to cast by “breaking” your wrist—you would move the rod you to form tight loops on the back tip through a large convex path and would be unable to form a tightcast. loop. (Remember that to form a tight loop, the rod tip must move along a straight-line path throughout the casting arc.) To widen the casting arc while maintaining the straight-line path of the rod tip, you must use your entire rod arm.

To accommodate the straight-line path of the rod hand, you must use your entire arm: upper arm, forearm, and wrist.

To move the tip of the fly rod along a straight-line path throughout the casting arc, your rod hand must move along a straight-line path throughout the casting stroke. In its entirety, the fly-casting stroke is a compound movement: the back-and-forth movement of the wrist, within the back-and-forth movement of the forearm, within the up-and-down movement of the upper arm—a move within a move within a move. Used together, these three movements allow you to move your rod hand, and hence the rod tip, along a straight-line path. Learning to move your rod hand and rod tip in a straight line is so important to becoming a good fly caster that you should think of what you’re doing as straight-line fly casting. If you were to lock your upper arm in place and use only your forearm and wrist to execute the casting stroke—as many beginners are prone to do—your rod hand, and hence your rod tip, would have no choice but to move in a curved path, producing a poor loop. Incorporating your upper arm into the casting stroke—raising your elbow slightly during the back-cast stroke, and lowering it again during the forward stroke—is critical to your rod hand’s maintaining a straightline path throughout each stroke.