Knowing when to stop is important in life… and in fly casting.
When the rod straightens after the power snap, the rod stops accelerating the fly line and the rod tip starts to decelerate. Theoretically, I want my haul to be completed at this moment. I want the peak acceleration of the fly line from my haul to coincide with that by the rod.
Although the goal is to end the haul as the rod straightens, when I am casting, I try to end the haul as I stop the rod at the end of the power snap. Finishing the haul doesn’t happen instantly, and so I speculate (and hope) that the haul’s inertia (or the process of stopping the haul) takes me to the beginning of the counter-flex of the rod. What really happens… I don’t know.
Once I finish my haul and I start the return haul, I try to feed the line back through the guides without creating slack. As mentioned earlier, I want the return haul to finish before the back stroke begins.
Because the path length of the rod tip during the power snap is proportional to the length of my stroke, the duration of my haul is related to the length and mass of the line that I am carrying. To expand on one of the five essentials of fly casting… longer line, longer stroke (or more specifically, wider arc), longer haul.
And there you have it, Simon: the timing of my haul for a front cast of a typical fishing distance without any wind. You posed a simple question, but hopefully, you can appreciate that the answer is very… complicated.
This post required much thought and reflection about hauling, and in the process, my haul has improved. I hope that your haul will also be helped because I’m starting to wonder if I am the one whom this blog is helping the most.
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