Fly casting is a rotation of the rod. There are many ways to rotate the fly rod, but to think that all methods are equally good is naïve. It’s much like the story for the grip.
Chris is one of the most efficient single-handed fly casters in the world. My goal is to cast like him. I feel so fortunate to have him as a teacher, coach, mentor, and friend.
You must find your Chris. Who do you want to cast like? Just make sure that your Chris has world-class mechanics.
I want to show you why I strive to cast with Chris’ mechanics… why he rotates his fly rod like few others. To this end, I used a video from YouTube showing Chris casting in Long Beach at a target 50 feet away in slow motion.
From this video, I made a screen recording of his first back cast while it was playing at one-fourth speed. Theoretically, each second of my video represents a quarter of a second from the original (slow-motion) recording at normal speed.
Next, I took screen shots every second from 11 seconds into my video (the start of Chris’ back cast) to 41 seconds into my video (the end of his back cast). I compiled these screen shots to create a PowerPoint presentation where the screen shots were superimposed slide after slide. (Unfortunately, the file was too big to upload, so I have substituted it with a PDF.)
For each screen shot, I subsequently traced the position of the cork handle (red line) and the rod butt (green circle). Finally, I compiled all handle and butt positions. See Figure 1.
The Beginning Of Chris’ Back Cast
Due to the angle of the rod at the start of the back cast, we know that the fly line is aerialized. If it were a pick-up, the rod tip would have started closer to the water. The first few seconds (from 11 seconds to approximately 16 seconds), show mostly a small weight shift or translation to ensure that slack is removed and that the line is taut. He is trying to save his rotation for the stroke.
The Power Stroke
From 16 seconds onward, we see a massive acceleration of the rod indicated by the large spaces between the lines. It is initiated by the shoulder (notice the elbow coming forward). At approximately 18 seconds into my video, the wrist starts opening.
We can see that he is not using his elbow joint very much: the angle between his forearm and his bicep doesn’t change much throughout this cast. This is the reason why the butt of his rod is taking a slightly concave pathway in Figure 1.
To be fair to Chris, this video was taken many years ago. He is much more compact in Nelson Nishiyama’s video recorded earlier in 2024. I am certain that the pathway of the butt would be more linear (and less curved) if I apply the same analysis.
It is simple to understand that the most efficient path between the bottom-resting position and top-resting position is a straight path.
What may be less obvious is that the path must have a vertical component for the trajectory of the back cast to have an upwards trajectory. Notice that there is little translation of the rod backwards during Chris’ power stroke. His stroke is predominantly up (to rotate the rod), not back (to translate it).
All of Chris’ energy is dedicated to rotating the rod as evidenced by the vertical movement of the rod butt. When he is casting well, he is using his shoulder, wrist and elbow to rotate the rod upwards to create a linear path.
How many people in the world rotate the rod with all of these joints simultaneously? Not many. The use of multiple joints to rotate the rod, instead of translating it, is one reason that distinguishes Chris as such an efficient caster.
Yes. Translation during the power stroke can help with distance. Look at Chris (as well as Henry Mittel, Steve Rajeff and Rene Gillibert) casting for distance. The path of the rod butt is much more horizontal. The main problem is that a distance casting stroke is impractical for fishing. It’s not intended to allow you to fish all day for several consecutive days. It was never meant to be an efficient way of casting.
The Dampening and Re-Positioning Phase
Chris’ power stroke ends at approximately 23 to 24 seconds in my video. See Figure 2. The bend in the rod is greatest at 23 seconds and there is less bend at 24 seconds, indicating that the rod has been stopped and that it is decelerating.
Notice the angle of the rod at end of the power stroke (almost upright), and how Chris maintains an upward trajectory afterwards. This is how Chris maintains a tight loop without pulling it apart, and how he avoids driving the fly into the water behind him.
From 25 seconds to 32 seconds in my screen recording, we can see the rod butt is taking an “S”-shaped pathway (Figure 1). Notice also that the rod is bending backwards in the screenshots during these frames. The rod is probably shuddering as Chris is trying to dampen the counter-flex of the rod by rotating the handle so that the rod tip does not oscillate.
Although I can’t see his grip relaxing and the cork handle rocking in his hands, Chris tells everyone that anyone could pull the rod out of his hands during this moment of dampening. His ability to dampen a rod always awes me when I clunkily cast a soft fiberglass rod that he smoothly casted moments before. And to rub salt in my wounds, when I hand the rod back to him, he casts it smoothly again as if the rod action had transformed to a faster one.
In the last 8 seconds of my PowerPoint slides, Chris finishes his re-positioning of the rod. This is evident in the largely translational movement – and the lack of rotation. Notice how the angle of the rod doesn’t change much (Figure 1). Although I did not include the screenshots, Chris’ rod tip remains still for at least the following five seconds of my screen recording, at which time I stopped recording.
Epilogue
Overall, most of the movement that we see in my screen recording is dampening and repositioning of the fly rod. The dampening and repositioning of the rod occur over a total of 17 seconds in my video. In contrast, the duration of the massive acceleration was 7 seconds. However, if we include the initial, slower movements of the back cast, the total time of the actual back cast stroke would be approximately 13 seconds of my video.
At normal speed, the dampening and repositioning of the rod look like they are part of Chris’ power stroke because it occurs so quickly. But don’t be fooled. It isn’t.
Yes. We need to reposition the rod to elongate our stroke for longer casts, but to call what Chris does after his power stroke “a drift” is not right. Chris is not making a slow, exaggerated movement as most of us are taught.
If you must call this a drift, you can call it a drift. But this is not your run-of-the-mill drift. This is a world-class drift that most people have never seen. It deserves a different word to distinguish it from the movements that everyone else makes.
I hope that this analysis emphasizes how quickly the dampening and repositioning phase of Chris’s cast occurs. During the early years, he would tell me to “GET there!” He wanted me to get my rod into the top position as quickly as possible so that I could rest there for as long as possible. There’s a sense of urgency during the dampening and repositioning of the rod.
Chris’ ability to dampen and reposition the rod so quickly and effortlessly is another reason why he is such an efficient caster. He prevents the formation of slack.
When there is no slack, there is constant line tension. It seems that very few casters understand that “five bars of reception” should be one of the most important objectives in fly casting. Could it be because most caster don’t understand the importance of a still rod tip?