Running line tangles

[Bruce Slightom]

All the above is good advice. I use mono and if I am casting on my down stream side I make three coils and if casting off my up stream side I make two. This is to try and not tangle the coils with the hook.

[JasonB]

Great feedback!
Thanks guys, I think that you've helped me to nail down at least a couple of things I need to adjust. Too many coils sounds about right, that had been what I was thinking every time I got tangled, but I wasn't sure if it was just me. The link was helpful, and lead me to some other helpful tips on that site too. Makes sense to loop the line back and forth, (or put a half twist in). I had thought about trying to hold the line with my top hand, but that seemed like a whole other step in the process and further complicating things. I'd give it a try or three though, and see if it works or not.

As for shooting line, I was pretty much just letting go entirely so I could cross my fingers as soon as possible and pray for the best. Perhaps, letting it go in a bit more controlled manner would really help.

No, I have not been casting out all the loose line each time. On those really long shot casts I think I was lucky if I was getting it all out (except for about 5-10' of line to play with during the swing) maybe 1 out of 4 tries. Often I'd just reel some line back in and go with some shorter casts to quit beating the water and try and just work the closer water as best I could.

I'll play around with these ideas a bit, and see if I can make some improvements. It also sounds like perhaps I'm nearing the top end of what I can realistically expect to be shooting with my set up. I'm always in favor of blaming my equipment rather than my own lack of technique any day
JB

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

If the integrated running line wears out we can cut it off and do welded loops on both ends and turn it around to start over on a fresh end.

[rippinstreamers]

I have been playing around with this for a while now, how many coils and which hand to hold the slack with, etc. Here is my final and easiest method I have come up with that doesnt require much time to try to sort out and make sure its right every time. The methods above work great as well, this is just what I prefer to do. strip in all the line you would before making a cast. Then what I do is grab both the line that is coming out of the reel and the line leading to your head creating a large bite. strip in two to three time and hold with bottom hand's pinky. once in the forward motion of your cast, release and wahlaa! Way to go by the way on getting bit on the smith, probably my arch nemesis of all rivers in this state. For the life of me I still have not gotten a fish interested in my fly there, how big or small did you go with that?

[JasonB]

I have been playing around with this for a while now, how many coils and which hand to hold the slack with, etc. Here is my final and easiest method I have come up with that doesnt require much time to try to sort out and make sure its right every time. The methods above work great as well, this is just what I prefer to do. strip in all the line you would before making a cast. Then what I do is grab both the line that is coming out of the reel and the line leading to your head creating a large bite. strip in two to three time and hold with bottom hand's pinky. once in the forward motion of your cast, release and wahlaa! Way to go by the way on getting bit on the smith, probably my arch nemesis of all rivers in this state. For the life of me I still have not gotten a fish interested in my fly there, how big or small did you go with that?

That's a brilliant idea. Oh and that hookup I had was on a #4 "Babine Special" (I add a bit of Marabou at the head for some movement). I did manage to get out and give all this some practice yesterday afternoon on the sfa (my home). I will say that all of the ideas mentioned provided some help some of the time, unfortunately I was having two other issues that kept me from really getting to consistently see how well I could shoot more line out:

A) my casting had slid backwards a bit, and I was having mostly so-so luck there. I had been really in the zone for a bit there, but with my spey casting it really seems to be an up and down roller coaster affair. One great day or two then three or four weak ones.

B) I kept having an "issue" when trying to strip back in the line to form the coils; I was getting bit! Ended up catching 2 pretty nice rainbows I hardly ever catch much on that stretch of river (although I know some folks do at certain times) so that was kind of a treat to get 2 nice ones in such a short time period just "messing around" with my casting.

I think THE biggest key overall that I noticed was that I need to make way bigger coils/loops and thus fewer of them. I also started leaving a lot more line dangling before starting to make loops of line, which helped with less tangles for sure. Unfortunately I didn't really ever get to see that line peel off the water and shoot out, as I wasn't generating quite as much line speed to shoot all the line out. I'm very hopeful that I've opened up some new potential though, just gotta get some major practice time in to get a bit more consistent in my casts.
Thanks for all the good advice,
JB

[Blueracer]

Mark, Jason

This is what Rick was talking about. I have found these videos helpful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_zRtPbpVSU
Explained further here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdTYi992-vw
It will take some time to keep yourself from doing it the way you have before but you might like the results better doing this.