It’s an innocent question of my daughter which asked how I could be sure that a cast was perfect.

As we are walking fast, I must find the fastest and visual explanation.

The first point is the anchor. It must be at the right place, just far in front enough and under the tip of the rod where the D-Loop will be the most effective one.

The second point will be the fluidity of moves: straight, no violence, no wave, no violence, only grace and lightness.

It was the two main things that came to my mind as the most important but they’re the emerged part of the iceberg, the goals and not the means.

As soon as I see one caster initiating his cast, I already know what will happen. In some case, they could correct, on the fly, but most of the time, it will finish as it started.

The cast starts as soon as the rod begins to leave the water level. Since this inception, the rod must follow a straight direction to 11:00. It starts to bent and must keep and deepen this bend until all of the line is out of the water. At this time, the line is tight between the water and the rod. The only way to achieve this it to move gently and regularly. When the rod reaches its apogee, the stable state will be for a split second only. As soon as the tension goes down, the line round down, the leader follow the traction and move back, and the rod becomes limp.

You have a tenth of a second to use the full advantage of your perfect way up to move up and free the leader of the water. If it is done correctly, the line form a nice asymptotic curve and flies over the water to the anchor point. It is so close to the surface that a very small down angle is sufficient to anchor the line exactly where you wanted it. But the real advantage is that the rod worked for you and you didn’t have to tear the line away of the water. This is the worst of all interferences in your cast.

Whatever the cast it just take the first few seconds to see if it will be a perfect cast.