Casting Capers – First Attempt.

This weekend I managed to find a couple of hours during naptime, so I headed out with my reels, rods and balls, and strolled to the field. My setup is reel down, I’m not entirely sure why, but I prefer this set up, it just feel more comfortable. I would start using the Daiwa’s and move onto the Abu’s once I had achieved a “birdie”.

Standing with my feet in the 12 and 2 position – I was using a 5 foot drop placing the lead roughly at a 20 degree angle from the rod blank.

Here’s a very ropey video of me giving it a whirl.

These casts were ok, but I still felt and though I was coming through too much with the right arm, rather than pulling down with the left. The best cast came in at what I would guess was 80+ yards. I suppose that’d be a standard good cast for me, but there was nearly half a field which needs to be conquered.

The rain had started and this stuff was a fine mist, making gripping the spool quiet difficult when releasing the cast, even in an off the ground cast. After about 20 casts I got my first birdie. I think it was because I tried to speed up the process to give it more power. I swapped to the other Daiwa and carried on, it was quickly clear that roughly guessing the length of a shockleader should not be attempt and what I had put on the reel was much too short.

Nevermind! Swap to the Abu. 3^rd issue of the day. The diameter of the coaster is perfect for the Daiwa’s as the have a graphite reel seat which is quite chunky. The Abu’s however have a metal footplate which is narrower and shallower and was unable to sit properly on the rod! Bums! No matter I thought – I’ll fill the gap with electrical tape! Nope. I put the tape back in the shed when I placed the balls in the rucksack. Bugger! Nevermind, 25 or so casts is better than no casts, and the rain was making gripping the spool difficult. So I unclipped the ball, released the reel clutch, broke the rod down and headed for home!