Last week we passed on a tip related to making longer spey casts with shooting heads – holding your loops in your top hand. For those of you who like to huck, we’re following that up today with another tidbit that helps with easier casts at longer distances.
This one comes from the world of single-handed tournament casting. After you release your cast and your line starts to shoot, rotate your rod 90 degrees, as shown in the picture above.
Why would you want to do that? Two reasons.
- It lessens tangles. Rotating the rod gets your reel out of the way of all those loops that just popped up and are now shooting through your guides. We’re not sure why, but it also seems to cut down on running line tangles around your guides.
- It lessens resistance which means easier distance. This is why the tournament casters do it. As your shooting line flies through your guides, gravity is going to make it bounce up and down a bit. If you don’t rotate, your running line will slap back and forth against your rod as it shoots. If you rotate your rod, your running line will come into much less contact with your rod (since the rod is now off to the side, with guides above and below, and a whole lot of air in between). Seem ridiculous? Our very unscientific study on the Dean River last week concluded that rotating got us an extra couple of strips when casting at distance. We’ll take it!
This technique also helps you shoot line when there is a strong upstream or downstream wind as it reduces the effect of the wind on the line hanging just below the rod shaft. I don’t think it matters much whether the rings are facing into or away from the wind.
I wonder if rod rotation is more a demonstration of holding the rod lightly and letting the rod do the work.
I use the old masterline mono running line, it is very thin however it can still kink though not as much as others. Unfortunately it is no longer available. Is there any other available – the closest seems to be Amnesia.