Latest / The Articulate Fly / S6, Ep 44: Perfecting the Cast with Mac Brown's Masterclass Insights

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S6, Ep 44: Perfecting the Cast with Mac Brown's Masterclass Insights · The Articulate Fly

0:03
Marvin: Hey folks it's marvin cash the host of the articulate fly we're back with another
0:07
Marvin: casting angles with mac brown mac how are you i'm.
0:12
Mac: Doing great how are you doing marvin.
0:13
Marvin: As always i'm just trying to stay out of trouble mac brown well.
0:17
Mac: That's a good thing.
0:18
Marvin: Yeah i think so you know and it's interesting you know you just finished up
0:23
Marvin: a uh an advanced casting school you want to
0:26
Marvin: kind of tell folks a little bit about how that went and then we've got a topic
0:30
Marvin: that i kind of came up with while i was doing some casting practice this weekend yeah.
0:35
Mac: It went really good the first day goes over a lot of just how how loops work
0:40
Mac: and what kind of like what the goals,
0:44
Mac: so they can go away you know to look at what they're trying to basically learning
0:48
Mac: to diagnose and learn how to tweak and change what they're trying to do as far
0:53
Mac: as the loop shapes that they're throwing.
0:55
Mac: And we talked a lot about that and go over the fundamentals of basic movement.
1:00
Mac: And a lot of that, that first half of the first day was basically covering that.
1:05
Mac: And that's, that's similar to what, you know, you and I were talking earlier
1:08
Mac: about from what you did practicing the other day.
1:13
Mac: So it might be a good, a good topic just addressing movement.
1:17
Marvin: Yeah. And so, you know, just, you know, for, for folks, you know,
1:20
Marvin: the idea that came to me, I was doing some casting practice this weekend and
1:24
Marvin: had the cones out and, you know, had cones at, you know, 30, 45, 60, 90 feet.
1:30
Marvin: And, you know, I was playing around really, you know, working on kind of the
1:35
Marvin: full arm casting style that we did our class on earlier.
1:42
Marvin: You know, gosh, it was probably, gosh, maybe March. And trying to kind of think
1:47
Marvin: through, you know, obviously at short distances, you need a shorter stroke.
1:51
Marvin: You don't need as much power and kind of trying to work through kind of the
1:55
Marvin: mechanics of you know how far can you go with the wrist how far can you go with
2:00
Marvin: the arm and how far can you go kind of with the shoulder right yeah.
2:06
Mac: Yeah i mean it's like then the the use of how do we coordinate all three of
2:10
Mac: those to complement one another's most i guess the most efficiency would be the best word to say.
2:18
Mac: And that way, when they all fire at the right time period,
2:23
Mac: you know, and using the whole arm, of course, and it's a whole lot easier to
2:27
Mac: just pick it up and being in a very relaxed fashion, just pick it up,
2:32
Mac: stop it at the right place, have the right rate of movement, and then let it go.
2:35
Mac: That right there alone is so efficient that it goes further than most people
2:41
Mac: ever cast, just doing it like super slow motion.
2:44
Mac: And then just imagine if you start to put a little bit of effort with it then
2:47
Mac: it just gets better so yeah I mean it's a lot of this when you first said that,
2:53
Mac: earlier today you know I thought about it when I was,
2:56
Mac: on a hike Marvin and like when it all started like in.
3:00
Mac: But 1858, they figured all this out in the first year. So this isn't like some
3:04
Mac: new rocket science in 2024.
3:06
Mac: You know what I mean? You're not talking. I mean, in England,
3:09
Mac: a lot of the chalkstone strings were so small that a lot of them did cast with just all wrists.
3:14
Mac: And then they started to use tricep and bicep and just pivoting from the elbow,
3:19
Mac: like keep the good book under your elbow at your side.
3:23
Mac: And then they learned real quick that about 1860,
3:26
Mac: with George Selvin Marriott, he basically trained
3:29
Mac: the world and all the tournament scenes for even america
3:33
Mac: i mean about the full-on casting style so i would
3:36
Mac: i would say all this has been around since 1860 but the
3:39
Mac: top casters out there have all done it since 1860 the same way so they figured
3:45
Mac: out full-on was a lot more efficient so so the elbow could move up and down
3:50
Mac: with the full arm and still yield what you you want without the con of saying,
3:56
Mac: now you want to go 40 feet or 60 feet,
3:58
Mac: that it can keep on going in range and go further and further, plus it can go short.
4:03
Mac: And I guess the nemesis to that would be, say, look at somebody that casts a
4:07
Mac: lot with a lot of wrist and keeps the arm very stationary,
4:10
Mac: and they'll find out real quick that they can go 20, 30 feet,
4:14
Mac: pivoting up of a single joint in their body, and then it seems a struggle to go 40.
4:20
Mac: And so the cons become much greater.
4:23
Mac: At a quicker rate once they isolate a small range of motion from the wrist.
4:34
Marvin: Yeah. And so it's almost kind of, it's almost like it's backwards from the way
4:37
Marvin: most of us kind of learned to cast. Right.
4:40
Marvin: And so, you know, I think we were talking before we started recording,
4:43
Marvin: you're really talking about full arm that, you know, it's going to,
4:47
Marvin: what it's going to do is you're going to actually, at close distances,
4:51
Marvin: you can really just use the arm and regulate, you know, how,
4:54
Marvin: how much the elbow moves.
4:55
Marvin: And you don't even really need kind of the, you know, call it whatever you want
4:59
Marvin: to, the squeeze of the rod at the end or pulling with your pinky because you
5:02
Marvin: don't need that power until you need to cast at a greater distance.
5:07
Mac: That's right. Right. And so, yeah, so if the elbow rises and falls,
5:11
Mac: you know, with the full-on casting, say with the casting accuracy,
5:14
Mac: say 20, 30 feet, or a fish rises and you just want to pick it up and reposition
5:19
Mac: it and throw it right in the ring where that fish rose,
5:23
Mac: the elbow might just rise and fall for that range.
5:27
Mac: Of course, a shorter stroke, going to have a shorter pause, going to have a
5:31
Mac: shorter arc. All those things are going to take life.
5:33
Mac: Shorter with everything because we're going short, right? The pause is going to be less time.
5:38
Mac: So the elbow might rise and fall two inches, but the elbow still moved up and down two inches.
5:43
Mac: Then you take that same example and say it goes from 30 to 50.
5:48
Mac: Pause is going to be a little longer. The elbow is going to move four to five inches now up and down.
5:52
Mac: The arc is going to be a little bit bigger because the elbow is moving more up and down.
5:57
Mac: So, I mean, that's kind of how it works. It's just like, let's say now you want to go to seven.
6:03
Mac: Same thing. Now the elbow might come all the way up to the Statue of Liberty,
6:06
Mac: pose, like holding the torch in the harbor.
6:10
Mac: Then when you come all the way back down, the elbow comes all the way back to
6:15
Mac: the side before you pull the pinky.
6:16
Mac: That's the most efficient way to launch something then at a bigger distance.
6:21
Mac: Does that kind of make sense? So the elbow is a variable.
6:25
Mac: The elbow moving up and down with this full arm casting is all variable.
6:29
Mac: I mean, it's still going up. It's just a whole lot easier to...
6:33
Mac: I mean, I've seen a lot of this out here the last couple of weeks.
6:36
Mac: I mean, you'll see people, the elbows kind of sitting in against the side,
6:40
Mac: and it's just all bicep, tricep. And if you think about it, just do it slow
6:44
Mac: motion for those listening.
6:46
Mac: Just grab a rod, move it with your elbow pinned against your side,
6:50
Mac: and you'll see that the whole tip is just drawing this big circular radius.
6:54
Mac: And then just imagine what kind of loops that's going to look like.
6:56
Mac: It's going to be a big circular fly leg.
6:59
Mac: You know, and that's exactly the non-efficiency that we don't want to have in our casting.
7:03
Mac: So I think people, it's kind of self-intuitive once you see that it's coming
7:07
Mac: around a big arc, and you're probably going to, chances are you're going to
7:10
Mac: have a big radius, a rainbow kind of loop going back and forth.
7:14
Mac: And of course, over here in Bryson for the last few weeks, most of what I've
7:18
Mac: seen is that, but then again, does it get the job done?
7:23
Mac: Because a lot of it's, you know, short repositioning of an indicator,
7:27
Mac: a bobber being thrown over the side of the boat 10 feet. So does it matter?
7:31
Mac: Probably not. so i guess we also got to clarify
7:34
Mac: that with what we're talking about is is more about
7:36
Mac: saying what if we want to come down through here like what we did last night
7:39
Mac: and fish dries and wets at 50 60 foot of range then that's where it's going
7:44
Mac: to matter so if we're talking about just bobber something then really all this
7:49
Mac: stuff is a mute point i guess is what i'm saying if you're throwing 10 feet
7:52
Mac: with an indicator and a big bobber then really doesn't matter how you do it
7:55
Mac: because it's not that far right yeah.
7:59
Marvin: But it'll also matter right if you're throwing you you know,
8:01
Marvin: streamers at distance, right, and trying to cover water.
8:04
Marvin: But, you know, one of the interesting things, you know, before we started recording,
8:07
Marvin: Mac, was we were also talking about the importance of tempo.
8:11
Mac: Oh, yeah. Everybody's got too fast a tempo. Why is that, Marvin?
8:14
Mac: Why does everybody want to be in such a hurry?
8:17
Mac: I mean, about every lesson I've ever given, everybody's in a hurry. It's kind of like golf.
8:21
Mac: If you see a golfer and when they're taking a new lesson, brand new golfer,
8:25
Mac: they want to take the club back real fast.
8:27
Mac: What are we going to gain by moving the club and the tempo really fast-paced?
8:30
Mac: That's the biggest mistake in golf as well.
8:32
Mac: It's the biggest mistake in casting. Everybody's off to a race.
8:36
Mac: And one thing that's a very good drill, if people get out and practice in the
8:41
Mac: yard at all with their casting is to really be cautious of trying to learn to be slow,
8:48
Mac: like to try to really slow it down where the tempo can be relaxed.
8:52
Mac: And I think it would shock a lot of the listeners to see how slow they can go
8:57
Mac: and achieve really a pretty good distance, you know, with moving really slow.
9:02
Marvin: Yeah, I think it's interesting. It reminds me of a casting kind of tip I got from Mark Huber.
9:09
Marvin: I think it was actually at the Virginia Fly Fishing and Wine Festival and we
9:13
Marvin: just had maybe 15 or 20 minutes at the hotel,
9:16
Marvin: one day kind of before or after the show and you know his suggestion to deal
9:21
Marvin: with the power issue was to keep casting and keep get a fixed length of line
9:27
Marvin: right so you're not adjusting for that and then to just basically keep casting,
9:32
Marvin: until your loop collapses right and then you know you back up just a little bit,
9:39
Marvin: that that's all the energy you need, right?
9:41
Marvin: Because to your point, a lot of people cast too fast and it sounds like you're
9:44
Marvin: listening to Zorro, right, with a sword.
9:47
Marvin: And that's all wasted energy.
9:50
Mac: Yeah.
9:51
Marvin: Right? Oh, yeah.
9:53
Mac: That's what people don't realize. They think going fast means going far.
9:57
Mac: And I think a lot of that's also some...
10:01
Mac: We'll just have to say that even though this is on full arm casting is that,
10:05
Mac: when you have a loop of line that's unrolling it's one
10:08
Mac: of the few things in life that people will ever do that actually accelerate so
10:12
Mac: if they like you know baseball and guns and golf and all these things those
10:16
Mac: are all projectile motion things to where they actually decelerate so to hit
10:20
Mac: a golf ball further what do you got to do you got to swing faster but in a cast
10:25
Mac: it's not it it's It's not really that way as much because of the way the loop works.
10:31
Mac: There's a lot of mechanics and physics to how a loop unrolls.
10:34
Mac: In other words, a way to say it, though, to make it really easily understood,
10:39
Mac: is the fly is always going faster.
10:41
Mac: As soon as you start the cast, the fly accelerates. It's going faster all throughout
10:45
Mac: the cast until the line straightens in the front.
10:48
Mac: And because of that fact, you
10:50
Mac: can go way, way slower than what most people think when they take this up.
10:54
Mac: And once they get to that point where they understand that it can go that slow
10:58
Mac: they're probably well on their way at becoming fairly elite caster at that point
11:03
Mac: but why not start there at the beginning instead of going too fast the tempo
11:07
Mac: would make it a lot make life a lot easier people yeah.
11:10
Marvin: And i think you know another kind of aha moment right it's when you realize
11:14
Marvin: that you know closing that three or four inch gap between the you know the bottom
11:19
Marvin: of your wrist and in the butt of your fly rod, and you do that.
11:23
Marvin: And, you know, just look at it sideways and see how much tip movement you get
11:26
Marvin: from that. And that just happens in an instant of a second.
11:29
Marvin: And you don't need to power it. You just literally just need to squeeze it.
11:32
Marvin: And, you know, if you do the math, that's a phenomenal amount of tip travel,
11:36
Marvin: but it also equates to a tremendous amount of acceleration.
11:40
Mac: That's right. Yeah, that's what launches the, I mean, gets the fly leg and everything,
11:44
Mac: all the system moving to form, you know, to form the loop.
11:48
Mac: And yeah, but we had some really good folks like this weekend that were just
11:54
Mac: really, really smooth and didn't really rush.
11:58
Mac: I mean, they were already well on their way, you know, being really good at advance control.
12:05
Mac: And it was actually really refreshing to see the amount of smoothness that the folks had.
12:12
Mac: And I didn't really have to go around until people slowed down at all this weekend. can.
12:15
Mac: So that was kind of a nice, nice thing.
12:20
Mac: For sure because the tempo was already there and part of it was from golf the
12:23
Mac: like one of the ladies that was here was lpga golfer for 27 years and of course
12:28
Mac: smooth abilities and tempo and all that was already very well mastered in the
12:33
Mac: game of golf for her so she kind of already had that which was which was nice yeah.
12:39
Marvin: And so you're all done with schools right until the fall.
12:44
Mac: Yeah the next cast in school will do is um in september
12:48
Mac: then we'll just get a lot bunch of little mini weekend type
12:51
Mac: of things for the next couple months still with uh there's
12:55
Mac: a wet fly school streamer school we have little
12:58
Mac: little weekend courses that specify and they kind of go in
13:01
Mac: in depth to just those those topics you know it's not like 50 ways to mend a
13:07
Mac: line or anything like that it's just all about wet fly game and the streamer
13:11
Mac: weekend's all about rates of retrieval and how we how do we fish streamers productively
13:15
Mac: with the different line choices and they cover all of kind of those kinds of topics.
13:20
Mac: And so, yeah, pretty much, pretty much done until fill the one in the, in September.
13:27
Marvin: Yeah. But obviously, you know, great opportunity. If you can come up to Bryson
13:30
Marvin: city with your family, check out one of those classes.
13:32
Marvin: And then of course, you know, I know, cause I talked to you earlier this week,
13:35
Marvin: you're on the sticks guiding folks too.
13:38
Mac: Oh yeah. It's been, yeah, it's starting to be that time of year where people
13:43
Mac: are thinking about being on the water.
13:44
Mac: It's finally greened up. And I think Wednesday, I think tomorrow they're talking
13:48
Mac: about hitting mid-80s, which will be the first warm day we've had like that
13:52
Mac: kind of one, you know, for this year. We've been in the low 70s quite a bit.
13:57
Mac: So that'll be a nice step. And I think it's supposed to be a really nice outlet
14:01
Mac: the next couple of weeks.
14:03
Marvin: Yeah. And so if folks wanted to get more information on any of those offerings,
14:07
Marvin: where should they go, Mack Brown?
14:10
Mac: Oh, mackbrownflyfish.com. That's the easiest. It has all those classes and the
14:15
Mac: menu item up at the top, and it will say specialty classes, and it'll describe
14:18
Mac: the dates for all the different things.
14:21
Mac: That's probably the best place to find it.
14:23
Marvin: Yeah, well, there you go. Well, I'll let you get back to seeing if any bugs
14:26
Marvin: are gonna come off on Deep Creek tonight.
14:28
Marvin: And you know, folks, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few.
14:32
Marvin: Tight lines, everybody. Tight lines, Mac.
14:35
Mac: Tight lines, Marvin.