For those following the Speed of Haul discussion on the Sexyloops Bulletin Board, here’s that post I promised. For those not following the discussion (or not wanting to read through those pages of casting-tech pontification), what follows is a quick taste of double-hauling (short cast) as shown on the 200-frame-per-second motion-capture system used by the Fly Casting Institute. If the hard-core aspects of casting are not your cup of tea, just enjoy the cool slo-mo. If you dig this kind of stuff, then have some fun with the cast/haul intricacies…

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That’s the QuickTime video up there…

And this is the resulting haul velocity graph down here…

You can see that the max velocity (with my hand) is reached at frame 873, which is quite close to maximum rod flex (MRF is casting geek-speak), versus rod straight position (RSP, at frame 894). There has been much discussion (coupled with high-speed video) about the maximum haul (at least in long-distance casting) occurring closer to RSP (or even just after RSP). While I’m not terribly surprised by the mo-cap results here, I am wondering if the highly wind resistant motion-capture “flags” (used to allow the cameras to “capture” the line), were causing me to haul sooner than I normally would have to compensate for the significant air-drag. I can definitely say that air drag with the flags in place was, well, a drag!

I have an idea about how to capture the line without flags, but I’ll have to kill a line to do it. I also have a 100+ foot cast sitting on the mo-cap system, also captured with double-hauling and flags. Just have to get the data points off the thing, but it’s sitting in Montana right now! My fellow casting-geek author, Grunde, and I have been threatening to write a technical haul article for some time (lots of threats, not much action), so perhaps this will be a good kick-off and I’ll light a fire under myself to get the data from the bigger casts, too…

More to come, for sure!