Jimmy, Do you spin-fish? Normal for righties is to cast right and reel left. Even with me, the old bait-casters were a swap-over proposition- cast right-reel right. Then I made the swap to spin-casting, and it became natural. Flyfishing is the same as spin-casting- cast right, reel left.
Jerry Goldsmith casts right & reels right, so that should tell you how strange that practice is. You need to practice reeling in under tension and without tension. Practice on a spin-caster, too. Also, remember this too. You 'play' a fish with the rod, not the reel. The reel's job is to store line and to feed it out. Feeding it out required some resistance to prevent backlash, or an actual HD Drag to hold a big fish from running off, and thus not having to use your hand to palm the spool. Small fish can be played with loose line, not even using the reel. So how do you do using your left hand to handle slack line, also? Also, when you cast, you are hauling with your left hand, or double-hauling. So the left hand and arm are busy while the right has the job of casting and not tiring out. Take it from me as I invented casting in the first place. DonO ----- Original Message ----- From: Jimmy D. Moore To: Virtual Fly Box ; Fly Fishing World ; Hill Coountry Fly Fishers Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 10:09 AM Subject: [VFB] Reeling left-handed I'm right-handed and I've always reeled right handed after changing the rod from right hand to left I know that in the time it takes to change the rod from right hand to left hand has cost me a fish or two, but try as I may, I just can't get the hang of reeling left-handed. I've had this trouble with my bait casting reel but it doesn't seem to affect how quick I strike at a bass. I've sat at my tying bench with a reel attached to a reel seat held the handle in my right hand and reeled left-handed until I'm blue in the face. After about 5 minutes, reeling left-handed seems natural, BUT . . . . when I get on the stream and a fish takes, I fall back into the switching rod from right to left hand and then reeling with my right hand. I'll try doubly hard to reel left-handed on the next fish, but even if I don't make the switch, my reeling is an uncoordinated jerky motion. Maybe I've just got a mental block. Any suggestions will be appreciated. JIMMY D --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VFB Mail" group. To post to this group, send email to vfb-mail@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to vfb-mail-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vfb-mail?hl=en VFB Mail is sponsored by Line's End Inc at http://www.linesend.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
