How Far Can You Cast?

I had the opportunity to attend an American Casting Association long distance casting tournament this past weekend. The Chicago Casting Club put on the event in my home town of Valparaiso. Casters came from all over the Midwest and Kentucky. I went wanting to compete in one event and then to watch the other events in anticipation of getting my feet wet and doing a little research for future competitions that I might enter. The events included; 5/8oz. 2/Hand Spin, 5/8oz. 2/Hand Rev. Spool, 1/4oz. Spin, Angler's Fly, Single Hand Fly, 2/ Hand Fly.

All the competitors were very friendly and eager to help a newcomer out. These guys were all veterans of the casting games and all had highly specialized custom rods for each event. After seeing the rods these guys were pulling out of there trunks I decided to leave my tackle in the car and just spectate the rest of the day. Then one of the guys offered to let me use some of his tackle. Needless to say he did not have to twist my arm.

The 2 hand reversible spool (bait casting) rods, consisted a small custom reel, minus the level wind and line guide, and a 13 foot rod. The rods were extra fast and needless to say built for long distance casting, not fishing.



The spinning rods were also very long, fast, and held reels with custom spools, made for long casting. The reels had no bails to avoid accidental closing during a cast. The guides on the spinning rods were also highly customized. The tip tops were approximately 20mm and the guides closest to the reel were 60mm to 80mm. The large diameter guides are too big to have the rod fit into a rod tube, therefore casters have removable guides on their spinning rods, some even had them on their casting rods. The large diameter guides keep line to guide friction minimal during the cast. Both spinning and reversible spool reels had a 20 foot length of 20 pound spectra-fiber braided line attached to 6 pound test diameter monofilament line. The braided line could handle the torque the caster put on the line at the release of the cast.

Fly casting events consisted of 2 handed fly, single handed fly, and anglers fly casting. The competitors also had highly customized rods. I casted in the anglers fly event. The rod I was loaned was a 9 foot 2 inch rod, that was the equivalent of a 14 weight. The line consisted of a 300 grain shooting head and leader combination and a running line of .015 diameter. The flies at the end of the tippet were simple flies, with yellow hackle. The hook was cut off at the shank, before the bend.

I competed in the 2 handed spinning event and the angler fly event. In the 2 handed spinning event my longest cast was 287 feet. The winning cast for the 2 handed spinning event was 310 feet. My best cast in the anglers fly event was 108 feet. That was a bit disappointing for me, because I had done much better in practice. The winning cast in the anglers fly event was 140 feet. With the proper tackle and some practice I think I could be very competitive in these events. I think I did ok considering I had never touched the rods I competed with before and have really not done much fly casting, especially double hulling, in the past 4 or 5 years.

Here is a really neat reel the one of the casters was showing off. It is a custom Mitchell 300, with a 13:1 gear ratio. Now that is a true high speed reel.