Long Distance Fly, Spin, Bait, and Surf Casting Techniques and Getting Started with Spey and Scandinavian Casting

By Randy Kadish

With so many articles and books about casting why did I write this short book? Part of the answer is that I never set out to write a book or even an article. Instead, I set out to become a better fly, surf, spin and spey caster. To do so, I always took my first step by studying casting techniques. Why did I do this? Because relatively late in life I came to believe in the power of technique; so when I became interested in fly casting, for example, I immersed myself in articles, books and videos, but surprisingly I still couldn't cast more than seventy-feet. Frustrated, I experimented with fly casting on my own, but with every casting discovery I made, a new casting symptom, like hitting myself with the fly, came out of hiding.

More and more I wished I had a casting coach, but not having a coach forced me to experiment on my own, and to find and understand the causes of my casting defects. And while I did, I took notes, notes that soon became a sort of casting journal, and then became articles that were published in many magazines. Does my journal answer every casting question or describe the only ways to cast? No. But even though I believe all casters are different and should learn from many sources, I also believe this book will help you cast farther and with less effort.

The chapters in this book are: The Power of Casting Technique, The Fundamentals of All Casts, Long Distance Fly Casting Techniques, The Double Haul, A Modern, Spey-Like Approach to Long Distance Surf Casting, Long Distance Spin and Bait)Casting, Getting Started with Spey Casting, Getting Started with Scandinavian Casting, and a fly casting memoir, Fly Casting with the Man of La Mancha.

About the Author

Randy Kadish is an outdoor writer. His articles about casting have appeared in many magazines, including: The Fisherman, Fishing and Hunting News, On the Water, Gaff, and Mid Atlantic Fly Fishing Guide.

He is also the author of the novel, The Fly Caster Who Tried to Make Peace with the World.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Randy Kadish
• Release date: Sep 2, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452429403

Randy Kadish

I'm a native New Yorker. After a good deal of disappointment, I gave up writing. Then my mother passed away, and I found that fishing helped ease my grief. Almost accidentally, I wrote and sold a fishing article. Afterwards, my articles and memoirs appeared in many publications, including The Flyfisher, Flyfishing & Tying Journal and Yale Anglers' Journal. To me, much of my writing is about how the challenges of fishing and the beauty of the outdoors helped me come to terms with loss and with a world I can't always understand. In a sense, my writing is autobiographical, as it reflects my own gratifying, but at times, difficult journey of emotional and spiritual recovery. On the long road of my journey, I slowly learned that, even when I don't have answers, I must strive to find forgiveness and self-worth and to connect to the good in the world. (This is how I define spirituality.) I therefore love books where the main characters struggle against inner and outer conflicts and then try to do what's right. My most recent book is, The Way of the River: My Journey of Fishing, Forgiveness and Spiritual Recovery.

Book preview

Long Distance Fly, Spin, Bait and Surf Casting

Also by Randy Kadish

The Fly Caster Who Tried to Make Peace with the World

The Way of the River My Journey of Fishing, Forgiveness and Spiritual Recovery

Long Distance Fly, Spin, Bait and Surf Casting

AND GETTING STARTED WITH SPEY AND SCANDINAVIAN CASTING

RANDY KADISH

Long Distance Fly, Spin, Bait and Surf Casting:

And Getting Started with Spey and Scandinavian Casting

Copyright ©2014 by Randy Kadish

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

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In memory of my father

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Power of Casting Technique

A Note on the Chapters

Fundamentals of All Casts

Long Distance Fly Casting Techniques

The Double Haul

A Modern, Spey-Like Approach to Long Distance Surf Casting

Long Distance Spin (and Bait) Casting

Getting Started with Spey Casting

Getting Started with Scandinavian Casting

Fly Casting with the Man of La Mancha

About the Author

THE POWER OF CASTING TECHNIQUE

WITH SO MANY ARTICLES and books on fly, surf, spin and spey casting, why did I write this short book? Part of the answer is that I never set out to write a book or even an article. Instead, I set out to become a better fly, surf, spin, and spey caster. To do so, I always took my first step by reading articles and watching videos about the kind of casting I wanted to learn. Why did I do this? Because, after so much failure in life, I came to believe in the power of technique. Let me digress a bit and tell you how this happened.

I was in my mid-thirties. A friend of mine, Bob, said he didn’t have enough softball players for his team, and then and begged me to do him a favor and play. I thought of how¸ when I was younger, I hadn’t played much softball. My sport was football. Besides, unlike some of my childhood friends, I always had to struggle to be just an average athlete. Often, I wondered why they, not me, were blessed with athletic ability. Many years later, the injustice still bothered me.

I looked at Bob and told him I didn’t want to play. He pleaded with me, saying that if I didn’t play there might not be a game. Though I was afraid of embarrassing myself on the field, for some strange reason I reluctantly gave in and played not one, but a few games. Almost right off the bat I learned that, somewhere after I graduated high school—and stopped playing sports—my body had changed. I was one of those so-called late bloomers.

Soon, I decided that I would devote a lot of time to playing softball, to becoming a very good player and, in my mind at least, erasing some of my failures in life.

It didn’t happen. The main reason was I had an average arm. Though I wanted to be a shortstop, I was usually relegated to playing second base. Disappointed, I jealously watched players who could really throw and wondered why they, not me, were blessed with great arms.

I would have kept wondering, but then, at the very end of the softball season, an incident happened that changed my life: Two guys and I were having a catch before a game. One of the guys, John, had played shortstop for a college baseball team. Though he was smaller than I, he had a gun for an arm.

John, the third guy asked, how do you get so much velocity on your throws?

I always try, John answered, to visualize that there’s an ocean in front of me, and then I throw over the top—like a shortstop—and pretend I’m skimming a stone across the top of the ocean.

I thought, what, there’s a trick for throwing well? I always thought that throwing well, for those with talent, was just a matter of rearing back and throwing with all their might? Maybe I’ve been wrong all these years, and there are things I can learn that can help me improve my arm.

And so, for the first time in years I started watching the New York Mets on TV, hoping to pick up pointers about throwing. Luckily for me, their color man, Tim McCarver, a former catcher, often talked about the techniques of pitching, more specifically about the importance of staying within yourself and keeping your front shoulder closed.

I decided that I was going to try these new techniques. I took a rubber ball and headed to the handball courts near my home. I expected that pretending to skim a stone across the top of an imaginary ocean would be easy. After all, hadn’t I skimmed stones when I was a kid?

Yes, but back then I did it throwing sidearm. Throwing over the top and skimming a stone, I quickly learned, was a lot harder. My wrist wouldn’t snap, and my throwing motion didn’t feel right, as if my arm and body were out of sync, and my elbow and shoulder were full of rust.

I thought that maybe