Good luck Jim, would love to hear you've had success on your slider.
OK - there is a post dealing with casting technique etc running that I can't add anything to as the suggestions are all good. What I'll talk about here is casting direction when spinning lures.
Chris made the point early in this post about casting parralel with the break and retrieving the lure behind the breaking waves just past the drop off into the gutter. It is a very good suggestion and was a timely reminder to me to include the technique back into the bag of tricks that it had fallen out of.
Rule no. 1 with casting direction - cast into the wind.
Generally the sweep direction and wind direction are going to be the same. Not always but generally. Casting into the wind allows the angler to maintain control of the lure when retrieving with minimal ballooning of the line and maximum tension on the lure. When casting so that the lure ends up down wind or past the perpendicular, control over the lure is lost and it tends to travel too quickly and bounce out of the water due to the large ballooning of the line that the wind will cause. Wave action will also contribute to a loss of control as the line is washed 'downstream' by the waves further increasing lure speed. (probably not such a bad thing for guys spinning with alveys)
Now casting into the wind has obvious repercussions as far as distance on the cast. Or does it? Well no for guys who are competent casters. Think of the lure as a javelin - world records are set when throwing into the breeze. This is due to the breeze holding the javelin tip up and prolonging the flight time. The same principle applies to an elongated slug. The key is to punch with the right hand (right handers) the lure out with force at a trajectory of about 30 degrees directly into the onshore breeze. The slug (if travelling straight and not tumbling) will go for about 40 metres under the force of the cast before the wind gets a hold of it and lifts the slug to a trajectory of about 40 degrees where it stays until gravity and the wind eventually combine to bring the slug down. Casts of 100 metres or more into 20 knot winds are well and truly achievable although it won't come off every time. Critical to maintaining control of the trajectory is to instead of casting so that the rod points to the sky during the cast, it is pointing more towards Tasmania ( right handed east coast anglers) Bit like Viv Richards in the covers running out Geoff Boycott (could watch that over and over) To achieve suitable punch on the cast it is important to treat the cast like a fly fisherman - when the weight of the lure reaches the furtherest point on the back cast is when to load up the rod with that weight and a forceful slinging action results.
Practice makes perfect here. But remember to wait until the lure is at its furtherest point back and you can feel the weight of the lure on your casting finger.
Rule no. 2 - always unless desperate use rule no. 1
There will be more info tomorrow (JD's are taking effect now) on retrieval methods.
Lindsay
PS - you gotta feel sorry for Parra - not!!
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Originally Posted by Slider
