flyfishtasmania

I caught a taxi from the Sydney airport last week to a friends house some 30 minutes drive away. I grabbed the first cab on the rank and was greeted by the loveliest Indian taxi driver. 'Just new to Australia' he said. As some of you are aware I lived in India for a while and I can tell you that there is no such thing as a good Indian taxi driver.

The next 30 minutes was the worst car drive I have had outside of Bangalore. We missed every light as the guy had no idea of the concept of judging the lights. His timing was terrible.

It wasn't until two weeks later while driving to a casting school in Perth, WA that I became aware of why the Indian was such an atrocious driver. A traffic light in front of me changed to red and I needed to stop in a hurry to avoid a red light camera fine. I stood on the brakes just as the Sydney taxi driver had.

The interesting difference between my method of stopping and his, was that when I stopped so abruptly there was no jarring or head jerking whiplash effect. When the Indian stopped he thought the idea was to stand on the brake as hard as you needed and kept your foot on it until the light changed to green. Good drivers unknowingly release the brake pressure just an instant before the car comes to a stop. This slight roll on effect removes the jarring. Try it next time you drive your car.

In casting this effect is what I call 'drift' or 'fade'. It is very important to learn crisp, sharp, superglue stops when fly casting. The more abrupt and sharper you learn to stop the rod the tighter and faster the loops will speed off your rod tip. If you don't learn to drift you will be a caster I liken to the Indian taxi driver. Learn to relax your grip the instant you stop and follow on a little. You will feel the almost sensual feeling that good casting really is. When you get this, I mean really get this, You will fall in love with fly casting for the rest of your life.

The amount of fade or reverse drift needs to increase with line length too. Just a couple of inches for short casts up to 6 feet on a back cast of 70 feet of line. This is achieved with a combination of effects. Relax your grip, cock your wrist, Lift your elbow and move your arm back a little. Feel the smoothness of the power transmission to the line, feel the longer, and smoother loading movement on the forward cast.