The much anticipated casting days finally arrived and quite a number of keen Central Coast Fly Rodders plus a couple of people who are now CCFR members were poised to take part in the first ever Peter Morse Casting days for the club.

The first day, Saturday the 28th was dedicated to basic casting techniques and breaking down the basics of what makes a good cast. We started about 9am and the 12 anglers were rigged up and ready to go. Peter started by explaining the 5 key elements of a cast. No matter what type of cast you do you need all 5 elements to have the best possible cast. The 5 we covered were:

• Straight Line Path – Peter explained what happens if the rod tip takes other than a straight line path.

• Stroke length – ensuring that the length of the stroke you make varies on how much line you have out. Many of us have very fixed stroke lengths that vary little when we cast.

• Slack Line – basically a slack line = no tension which = a poor cast with no distance or tight loops.

• Acceleration – Provides the tip speed you need to shoot the line – the acceleration must be smooth and not jerking just like when you accelerate in the car.

• Pause – another area many of us forget. You need to pause on the back cast and the forward cast.

After the discussion on the top 5 elements and a demonstration on the right way to use them vs the wrong way by Peter, it was time for each of us to come forward and demonstrate our normal casting style (or lack of). I was first up and it was amazing to see Peter analyse a cast and come up with corrections so quickly. Like many of us I tended to over power the cast and therefore end up with tailing loops on the final cast. Peter showed me how to let the rod do the work and use those pauses in the right place to generate the power.

We one by one went through this process and Peter gave constructive feedback and areas to focus on to each of us. We had a quick break for morning tea and then headed out onto the field for some practice of the points Peter had shared with us. Peter walked around to each of us to see how we were progressing and gave advice on tweaks such as wrist position, acceleration and managing the line.

By the end of day 1 we were all much improved on where we started and not only that were all feeling pretty good about the fact that our effort level had dropped and we were probably casting better than we were with far less effort which in turn equates to a much more pleasant casting experience without throwing a shoulder.

Lunchtime was upon us so we headed to the corner shop for a quick bite to eat and then across to Little Mooney Creek to put into practice what we had learnt that morning. We met up with Chris, Rob, Col, Jeff, Brooke and Abby and set things up for the BBQ that night and then headed to the dam to have a fish. Chris had been there for a little while casting furiously for a nil result, so I sidled up beside him and started casting my little black bead headed bugger and before long had landed a beautiful bass and all I could hear were a few expletives to my left 8^).

We then went and packed up headed up to the shed for a cuppa and some carrot cake, thanks to Chris before all heading home for some sleep before day 2.

Day 2 saw us arrive at about 8am for an 8:30 start. It was a cool morning with a light breeze, but that was going to change!! The object of today was to learn some advanced casting techniques, taking the basics that we learnt the day before and then adding to them. We covered, roll casts, Oval Casts which everyone found extremely useful, casting into the wind or with the wind coming across your shoulder. We then took on mends of varying types. Again many of these ends will have a great bearing on our fishing and I am sure will get used a lot especially in flowing water or tidal creeks.
The morning was littered with sharp showers of rain and a strong southerly breeze. Luckily we had a good spot that wasn't overly affected by the wind and we had Brownie who happens to have an RV Shade on his Patrol, so we had both things covered.

Everyone that attended either or both days went away extremely happy with what they had learnt. It was great to see so much improvement in everyone's casting and some valuable new techniques to apply to running water, avoiding casting over fish, fishing in the wind and also shooting heads.

My thanks to everyone that attended – Mal Holden, Rob Harwood, Roy Browne, Dave De Luca, Ivan Malby, Garry Kent, Ian Keuning, Mac Lyell, Aaron Fielder, Barry Bradfield, Scott Chaney, Joel Norman and Mick Dillon. A special thanks of course to Peter Morse for travelling up to run these sessions and doing a masterful job despite having a good dose of the flu. If you get the chance to do one of these tuition sessions with Peter I strongly recommend you take it. Peter is more than happy to come again next year for a refresher.