How to use your wrist effectively for tight loops

[@paharding]

In my opinion this is the finest fly fishing video ever. Thank you for this incredibly insightful video. All of it is well done and fascinating. The slow motion video near the end is awesome because of its clarity.

[@CaptChrisMyers]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@thefella131]

Probably the best lesson I've seen on fly casting. 👍

[@CaptChrisMyers]

Thanks

[@capttomhughes]

Thank you for explaining the speed up and stop, wrist movement, and to keep the rod tip UP during the casting stroke. The slow motion section of your video should help anglers understand the importance of a tight loop.

[@henrysmith3187]

I have a library of fly-casting books and have looked at so many videos - this is the best video on fly casting I've ever seen. Thanks!

[@CaptChrisMyers]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Jettro2000]

I agree nothing has been more specific!!!!

[@cs1089]

This video, especially the slow-motion close-up at the end, is excellent. Extremely helpful!

[@shawnhepinstall5]

Easy to follow, very clear instructions, very straight forward. Thanks

[@bfmv7nor]

Your channel really deserves more views!

[@CaptChrisMyers]

Thanks

[@wootenbasset8631]

Thanks for breaking apart your rod to show the straight line path of the tip. I think I finally can see what the hand is supposed to do to keep the tip straight.

[@huntsail3727]

I am working my way through your videos. This is very helpful. The explanation along with the demonstration in the video makes it clear, almost like I was there taking a lesson. I plan on taking this out the the pond tomorrow. I think you are spot on about us (me) taking my wrist too far back on the backcast. I'll follow your suggestions and see what happens. Thanks!

[@CaptChrisMyers]

That is the number 1 casting issue I see in almost everyone I work with.

[@TexasSlamFishing]

Great stuff Chris. You have the most complete instructions on KZbin. I'm going tomorrow for my first time for redfish in Galveston. Thank you

[@CaptChrisMyers]

Glad it was helpful!

[@ericenglish8720]

Can’t wait to try the wrist flick! Well done video instruction.

[@Rossco-o9c]

Great video very well illustrated thanks chris

[@wrmyers]

The closeup, slow motion analysis will really be helpful to try to copy and pantomime the stroke. Thank you!

[@bobhart900]

Wonderful, Chris, I will now try to use my wrist slightly more, as you instructed. Your videos are easy to follow, and are sure to improve my casting. Thanks

[@Nassangler]

Excellent presentation. I greatly appeciate all ofvyour instructional videos, but this one was particularly relevant for me.

[@CaptChrisMyers]

Thanks

[@kevinjtoner]

Very good instruction!…….Thank you 👍🎣

[@vangmountain]

Nice explanation. For me, it took casting with my left hand to figure this out. I started surf fishing with a fly rod and I found it very dangerous to case when the wind is blowing the fly into you (perpendicular to the fly's path). To address this, I became and ambidextrous caster. Because I started with my right hand, I developed bad habits like overpowering the rod. When I would haul, my hand motion would not allow my haul to load the rod. Because my left hand was weaker, I developed power with my haul, the correct way. I was able to shoot my lines out flat and with little effort and this bothered me because this was my weak hand, but it was casting much better than my right and my right had some 3-4 years experience over the left. Once I studied it, I realized my left was naturally accelerating the rod at the end with the wrist. To properly load a rod, there must be acceleration. With out it, you just have constant velocity, and it doesn't matter what that velocity is, it's not going to load the rod. This what I was doing. I was overpowering with my hand and generating a lot of velocity with my rod, but it was not loading the rod so my cast required a lot of energy, but yielded less delivery power than my left-handed casts. This was all because the rod was not loading enough in my right hand casts. What I resorted to was returning to the basics to correct my right hand cast. I brome my bad right hand habit by making overhead casts so as to limit my rod arc that it traverses. If you hug your elbow tight to your chest, and only allow the forearm to move, your arm will be forced to stop the rotation at about 2 o'clock on the back cast because this is the amount of freedom it can rotate only. One this did for me was it meant I could not generate a lot of velocity due to this limited movement. This is where I discovered that flicking my wrist was the key. It's the final ingredient that keeps the rod accelerating and the wrist has a natural stopping point which helps you to bring the rod to an abrupt stop, something that is needed to transfer the momentum to the fly line. It was only by returning to the very basics and realizing that I needed very little power from my hands. Instead, the power comes from the haul which loads the rod tip. The flick of the wrist at the end allows the rod to keep accelerating loading it even more and then the abrupt stop is where the momentum transfer happens. It took a weak left hand outcasting my strong right hand for me to realize the mechanics of the right hand were not correct. What I was missing was the end power flick of the wrist. All the videos I learn from told you not to use your wrist and so I never did. This was fine for trout fishing in tiny rivers and streams, but I realized quickly that with saltwater fishing, you need a lot more power to deliver your flies when the wind is gusty. The lack of the wrist at the end of the stroke was what my right hand was missing. After correcting this, I now can achieve the same efficiency as I do with my right hand. A lot of times, and if you've ever played sports, you know what I'm talking about, we substitute muscle for technique. This is very prevalent in wrestling. A very strong guy just muscles his way through matches and never masters techniques and leverage. Finally, he meets a person who is a master technician and his strength is easily voided leading to a terrible defeat due to the lack of technique. I found this to be true with my right hand and I'm so glad I went the ambidextrous route because if my weaker left hand hadn't routinely outcast my right, I would have never questioned the casting of my right hand. Now, because of this, I don't have to make many false casts. It's typically just 1 false cast to the front and then the 2nd is the delivery thanks to the double haul. But yes, I absolutely agree that a wrist is needed at the end. First, we start with translation and there is no wrist, and then, we finish off with rotation and this is where the wrist comes in to add that final peak acceleration ending in an abrupt stop to transfer all this energy into the fly line and ultimately, the fly, allowing it to cut through even high winds. On a side note, I see so, so many, even very experienced fly fisherman, be limited to casting with only one hand. This to me makes zero sense. To cast the other way, they resort to a blind back cast. I don't understand it. Why not be ambidextrous and learn to cast with both hands. The 2nd hand is easier because you know what to do already. For me, it allows me to fly fish more safely and it allows me to cast in any direction if I'm on a boat. To me, ambidextrous casting is a no brainer, especially if you do any saltwater fly fishing.

[@CaptChrisMyers]

I no longer think of "rod loading" relating to power or speed. The rod needs to bend the correct amount to keep the tip along the straight path but the line speed is coming from the speed you move the tip and hauling. If the rod is not bent, it is probably not moving in a straight line path. if it is bent too much, a tailing loop forms. There are definitely a lot of parts in a longer distance cast.

[@vangmountain]

Hmmm...interesting you don't think of "rod loading" relating to speed or power. I am no expert fly fisherman but speaking strickly from a physics point of view, the power and speed of the fly does come from the rod being bent. When we translate the rod foward, the rod imparts a force to the line acclerating it. The line has mass so it too imparts a force on the rod per Newtons 3rd law accelerating(the bending of the rod) it in the opposite direction. Because the rod is very elastic, it takes this kinetic energy and stores it as potential energy. As we translate the rod, we apply even more force to the line by hauling it. This causes the rod to bend even more, storing even more kinetic energy. As our rod translates forward, accelerating as it does, it finishes off with a final acceleration from the wrist which bends the rod even more. So when we break down the sources of energy to deliver the fly, we se it comes from three sources, the arm stranslating, the haul, and the the flick of the wrist. All these sources transfer energy to the rod via the line which is the reason for it bending(accelerating in the opposite direction). When the hand, the wrist, and finally the rod, come to a stop, all this potential energy in the rod is transferred to the line which is a tapered mass. This mass has velocity hence, it has momentum. As it moves in time, more and more of the line is brought to a stop. Because momentum of the system must me conserved, as mass is shed, we see by the equation for momentum, p=mv, that in order to conserve momentum, as less and less mass is in motion, what mass remains in motion must have a higher and higher velocity. In other words, as the line turns over, the remaining line back to the fly accelerates faster and faster. This is only possible by storing all the energy in the rod and releasing it all at once. Think of the rod loading as a capacitor charging. Capacitors are able to store large amounts of energy and then quickly dis charging it. The hand translating, the haul, and the wrist, all have energy but they cannot discharge it the rate a rod can. When we use energy to displace an objectn we ade doing work. The rate at which work is done is power. The haul, the wrist, and the hand translation can do work, but not at the rate of the rod. As such, we take all those energy sources and give it to the rod and we let it release that energy at a very high rate. This work(displacement of the fly line) being completed at much faster rate when we load the rod and release that energy tells us the rod is the source of the power(rate at which work is done). Without the rod, we will never achieve the lines speeds you see. The speed of the line tells you the rate at which work is being done. We can easily prove that the power indeed does come from the loading of the rod. Just take a stiff rod that has little to no flex and cast the exact same way and you will see that no matter how much power you put into your hand, wrist, and haul, you cannot come close the the velocities generated by a loaded rod. It's night and day. What is the only thing different? It's the rods ability to store and release energy. This is why I would have to humbly disagree with you and point out that "rod loading" is not only related to power and speed, it is the very source of power which is what yields speed. Capacitors are used for the very same purpose. They take energy, store it, and then release at a very high rate. When it is used to displace masses, it is doing work. The faster it is able to do this, the more power it is delivering. This is the role of your rod. It's the "capacitor" that does the work to launch your fly. Cheers!

[@CaptChrisMyers]

Sound like you love to analyze casting like me. If you have not seen this video, or many of the others he does, the analysis is great - kzbin.info/www/bejne/n3nTm3ePZr2je7M. I will be posting one soon casting with just the tip of the rod. While it of course bends, the bend is not nearly to the extent of a full rod but the line speed it nearly identical. I can move the line extremely fast with a rod/object that does not bend but the tip cannot follow the SLP so the loops are harder to control. I do not disagree that the rod stores energy that it then imparts to the line but this bend is only a small part of the well formed cast. I can also easily overbend the rod and cause tails. I can bend it too much on either side and cause huge open or non loops. For these reasons, I encourage people to think of having tension on the tip throughout the stroke but not too think of load as what is launching the cast.

[@vangmountain]

@@CaptChrisMyers ​ Thank you for the link! And yes, I do like to analyze casting and that's really white I absolutely love fly fishing and refuse to do any other kind of fishing but fly fishing. For me, there's a beauty to it and there's just a love for the fly cast, so I'm always chasing that perfect cast and if you're like me, my casts are never good enough. I'm always looking for that perfect cast. Sure, my cast my be good, but I want a perfect cast, not a good cast. Seeing the video, I now see what you're talking about and yes, I would have to agree absolutely with Paul's thinking. I agree because that's exactly what I do. For me, it's simpler to think it from a physics standpoint. And even though I say you bring the rod to an abrupt, you actually don't and the reason for that is that if you do, the rod will bend over as it releases that potential energy and what you get is that your rod traces an arc, rather than a straight line. Paul refers to it as a later power application. I do not disagree with his casting technique at all because from a physics perspective, it 100% is correct. This is how I would explain it because for me, it's all about physics. Are we loading the rod? Yes, we are still 100% loading the rod. The only difference is that he and you interpret loading the rod differently. As he puts it, loading the rod occurs earlier and this occurs later. For me, it's still all loading the line. The key is that in Paul's version, the rod stops early and what would happen is the rod would unload and as it unloads, it returns to it's straight form, than then it will surpass that in bend over, tracing an arc verses a straight path. This is how I explained it, but it's not how I cast and yes, it would be presents flaws as correctly pointed by Paul. I cast the same way he explains it and the physics agrees with what he is saying. From a physics perspective, what we are doing is still loading the rod. The key is how we unload it. I agree with you and Paul because it's how I unload as well. What we are doing is translating the rod as the rod is unloading. By this I mean, we are keeping the CM(center of mass) of the rod ahead of the rod tip. As this rod translates forward, the rod tip is gradually catching up to the CM(it's unloading). Because we are keeping the CM ahead of the tip, by the time the energy is spent, the rod comes to a stop as a straight rod. The tip NEVER overtakes the CM by bending past it, like if you were to bend a rod and just let go. In this instance, the tip would reach the equilibrium point of the rod(straight rod) and then it would continue on past it by flexing beyond it. In our cast, the tip does eventually overtake the CM, but it does this through rotation of the rod as a straight rod at the end of our stroke. In other words, while the rod is unloading, our rod translates forward simultaneously ensuring the energy in the rod is all transferred to the line and not to the rod. When a rod passed the equilibrium point an flexes over, it does not transfer all the stored energy into the line efficiently. By this I mean, the energy does not remain in a straight line. Instead, it's distributed in the shape of an arc and this is inefficient because the arc tells us the rod is imparting both a horizontal and a vertical component to the fly line. This vertical component is wasted energy. What we want is all the energy to be horizontal so that it all goes into accelerating the line out, not out and down. This "later power application" as Paul puts it, is just us translating the rod long enough to allow the rod to unload and finish in the equilibrium(straight rod) position. At this "late power application" we are starting to rotating the rod because as it get's closer and closer to this straight road, it's length along the rod is getting longer and longer and if we don't rotate, the rod tip will start to rise above our straight line we are trying to traverse our tip with. The rotation allows the rod to increase in length, while still maintaining the tip of the rod on this straight line path which is what we want. ---Continued

[@vangmountain]

-Continued It appears we are all doing the same thing, but we are saying it differently. My initial analysis of my cast as explained to you in my previous comment is actually incorrect because if indeed I were coming to an abrupt stop, as I said I was, I'd be allowing the rod tip to exceed it's equilibrium position, that being a straight rod, which would allow the tip of the rod to trace an arc, rather than a straight line. In this regard, I absolutely agree with you and Paul, but I would still think of loading and unloading the rod. The key is how? When we load the rod, we want it to be a slow constant acceleration, not a choppy or quick short acceleration. If it's choppy, it will introduce slack in the line. If it's quick, it will also generate slack, but it comes from the fact that a quick acceleration causes the the line to stretch and store potential energy due to it's own inertia and what happens is the end will be accelerated faster than the the lead which will cause the end to overtake some part of the lead and introduce slack in the form of a kink(the 2nd cross of the tailing loop). The tell tell sign of this is the tailing loop. The quick short acceleration causes the rod tip to drop immediately so it dips and then rebounds up and what this traces is a concave shape which gives you the classic tailing loop. Your video on tailing loops shows very clearly this acceleration from the rear as it rapidly overtakes the rest of the line. What people don't understand is that when two masses are connected and the rear undergoes an acceleration via a tension force from the front, these two masses are experiencing an impulse event which is just the a force applied over some time T which results in a change in momentum. The shorter the time, the greater the force per unit T. When the rod accelerates short and quick, the impulse between the leading part of the line and the rear part of the line causes the front to slow down and the rear to accelerate faster. It's this that causes the 2nd cross of the tailing loop. The rear of the line is accelerated much faster than the front and overtakes it and that is why you see what you see. If you've ever towed a car with a line or if you've ever towed another person with a bike, you experience this very same thing. If you accelerate slowly, you get a smooth accelerate between you and the person you are towing and this is because the difference in velocity between you and they is kept to a minimum. In the case of a hard pull, you feel yourself get pulled back and they accelerate forward causing slack to build up in the line. It's for this reason why your acceleration must start slow and be uniform. It must not be jerky and or quick and short. Maintaining this uniform acceleration is crucial to maintaining proper tension on the line and a proper bend on the rod. The end stroke should be a uniform deceleration that ideally, ends with the rod unloading itself and not shooting over the equilibrium position. I like how you talk about "overbending" the rod, and I know exactly what you mean by that, but I would just like to add that in my opinion, there is no such thing as "overbending" the rod. To someone who doesn't understand, it would appear you are saying there is a max position the rod should not bend beyond, which you are not. If you were saying that, then I would have to say I disagree with you there. Of course, this is not referring to the breaking point of the rod. To me, what you are actually trying to say is not "overbending", but rather, putting your rod and line through short impulse events. This is really what you mean when you say, "overbending". The rod can bend as much as you want, as long as you allow it the translational distance to dissipate that bend. The key is the duration of the impulse. The greater the bend, the greater the force. As such, you must increase the impulse duration T and we do this by translating the rod a longer distance. As long as you are doing this, there is no such thing as "overbending". Overbending is when the rod stores too much energy, and you are releasing it in too short a time. This is the quick acceleration into a quick short stop you showcase in your tailing loop video. What you are showcasing is a short impulse event involving a large force(large bend in he rod). So to close, I will say that I now understand what you are referring when you say you don't think of "loading the rod" even though that is what we all do in actuality. And on this point, I am 100% in agreement with you and Paul. You and I are saying the same thing, but in different ways. My view is purely physics as that's how I understand the physical world I live in. For me, it's simply focusing on loading the rod correctly from the start, which is slow and uniform to ensure we are accelerating the line uniformly and then finishing it by translating the rod and then rotating it to allow it to unload without overshooting it's equilibrium position by a lot. You see this crossing of the equilibrium position very clearly in your tailing loop casts as the rod violently crosses over it's straight position and bends in the opposite direction and oscillates back and forth. In your good casts, you see a slight crossing over, but it's very minimal and and the rod finishes in a straight position very quickly as oppose to the tailing loop casts. As I've said earlier, when it comes to the general overall concept of the cast, I am 100% on the same page with you and Paul. If there's any differences, it's really just how we choose to communicate the details. The key is I understand exactly what you are saying now and there is not disagreement on my part from neither a physics nor a fly casting point of view. If I had anything to say, it would be that you might want consider your choice of words because in the wrong set of ears, it may come out different. Things like "overbending" could be construed as saying that casts should only bend the rod x amount at max when you and I both know, there are times we need to bend the rod as much as it possibly can. This is a given as the elements determines how much power we need. The key is to know that when we reach for that extra power, we have to give it the extra time it needs to be able transfer that energy efficiently into the line. I'd like to thank you for taking the time to respond and to share Paul's video. As you've noted, I love to analyze the fly cast and am always looking to be a better caster. Talking to someone with yours and Paul's experience and expertise for sure, will only help me to be a better caster. Thank you and sorry for the long-winded post.

[@thewrightdesign407]

Great video! Cheers 👍

[@CaptChrisMyers]

Thanks 👍

[@Online_is_limited]

cheers mate

[@marionhiller1312]

How long is the line past the rod tip. Very instructive.

[@CaptChrisMyers]

In the video, I am only using about 30ft of fly line plus a leader. Otherwise I have to get too far away from the camera to see both front and back casts. The same technique applies to all my cast lengths.

[@69pierremercier]

It looks like in slow motion you have a fly on your tippet? Does it get hung up in the grass? Or do you have something special?

[@CaptChrisMyers]

You should always tie somethin on the end for best results. I am using yarn.

[@aljohnson1191]

Thank you, i think i was getting too caught up in trying to make sure my wrist wasn’t moving at all

[@Flyrodder68]

Is that a CTS blank?

[@CaptChrisMyers]

No it is an old TFO model they made in yellow for instructors.

[@CaptChrisMyers]

It is a TFO TiCr. The one on the market was black