Casting Article.

[guest61]

Hi all

I found this on line recently, the site is no longer maintained but the article talks about the development of the Wallis cast - Its a good read.

The fabulous famous FWK Wallis Cast by Phil - Article - PurePiscator.com

Nothing much to do with fishing but does anyone know if anyone can cast a centre pin 235 ft these days?

Mark

 

[barbelboi]

I hope this is taken it the right context, and I’m a regular pin user, but IMO the great FWK Wallis developed the ‘cast’ during the days when there wasn’t a decent f/s reel around. Great ingenuity at the time but I’d be surprised if he had access to a decent f/s at the time he would have bothered.
PS Yes I have done the Wallis cast just for the nostalgia but again, IMO, that's all it is.

 

[guest61]

No offence taken, it posted was more for info. rather than 'Wow' look what you could /can do with a centre pin.

Mark

 

[Paul Boote]

The man cast a .28 ounce weight (if the drams / drachms converter I found just now is correct) a distance of 235 feet! Staggering achievement if he employed a "pure" Wallis Cast, the one people know as the Wallis Cast and use today. However, for tournament casting, Wallis might have used the overhead pendulum Wallis Cast taught to me by his pupils, Ken Guy and Gordon Edwards - this can achieve tremendous distances: I did 70 yards with it and a half-ounce weight years and years ago, new to the Cast and trying to see how far I could fling a lead (there's also a variation in which you stand with your back to the water, then either cast over your shoulder or pivot on your heel as you fling the lead water-wards with a tremendous side-swipe).

I might have the very reel that did the 235ft - I have a Slater Wallis Zephyr that belonged to F,W.K. (see the "tackle owned by a famous angler" thread - http://www.fishingmagic.com/forums/coarse-fishing/222288-well-known-anglers-tackle-have-you-any.html), and, although it is in fine condition (drum and backplate), its bearing is knackered - the reel barely runs; a fine-looking reel, I have often thought, that clearly has been put through a lot of ... non-fishing use? ... tournament-casting use maybe...?

 

[chav professor]

I hope this is taken it the right context, and I’m a regular pin user, but IMO the great FWK Wallis developed the ‘cast’ during the days when there wasn’t a decent f/s reel around. Great ingenuity at the time but I’d be surprised if he had access to a decent f/s at the time he would have bothered.
PS Yes I have done the Wallis cast just for the nostalgia but again, IMO, that's all it is.

Is performing the Wallis cast really just for the nostalgia?

I can see the same potential debate amonst sea angler. To fish sucsessfully on the east coast it was essential to learn how to pendulum cast. It took years........ reading books, following the diagrams......... starting off with the off-the ground cast....... It wasn't untill I studied someone perform a proper pendulum cast (I had joined a club and started fishing matches) it all fell into place. The skill was learning to time the cast, then control the multiplier - all too much for the average pleasure angler......

Now adays, it is possible to achieve distances in excess of 100yards with a 16 or 18ft rod and a multiplier with an 'overhead thump'...... Most match anglers I know still use the standard 13ft rod, multiplier and take pride in the fact they have achieved a certain level of competance in casting. As far as i know, sea angling does not share the same in-divisions as their coarse fishing cousins......

This was the link that enabled me to finally learn a Wallis style cast [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJHyQJIwP4w]YouTube - ‪Modified Wallis Centerpin Cast from FloatFishingConnection.com‬‏[/ame]

It may not be the 100% authentic wallis cast, but it achieves much the same thing in the same style. BTW - Nice article.

Purepiscator was a site I missed out on during its 'hayday' which I regret - looked like a nice place to 'hang out' whiling away the times where you are not on the bank!

 

[stuartpengs]

Contrary to what you seem to read learning the Wallis style cast is easy I have taught hundreds of people over the years though I will admit it is easier to teach young people and ladies as they tend to listen!
Casting a 100 feet with a float should be well within the grasp of most people though why you would want to rather defeats me as lets face it in a normal river trotting situation you can only loosefeed a short distance and there is no point fishing beyond it! longer casts on a stillwater make more sense but then again why bother with a pin for that job affectation I suppose...
Oh and Wallis described his cast as being in the Nottingham Style
As ever if anybody wants to learn come up and see me I don't charge but I do ask and expect that you will pass the skill on to someone else ....for free!

 

[the indifferent crucian]

Although the Pure Piscator site is no longer operational, its forum, The Secret Swim is still running until the end of this month.

It is hoped that a new site will be ready to step into the breach then, or perhaps soon after.

The 'Wallis' cast , as it is known these days, does enable you to cast a distance and thus use a centrepin reel on stillwaters. It's worth doing for that reason alone, if you can manage it.


Sadly I simply can't do it, try as I might, so I have a few rods with an extra butt ring whipped on to allow me to pull more line off the rod and reel with my spare hand.

 

[barbelboi]

Chav, possibly nostalgia is in the eye of the beholder. IMO the Wallis cast is just that, however I share your taste for a good piece of Tonkin (sorry Ron) and I have great pleasure in using my '58 Mk4 avon (on occasions) that was bought for me by my late father as a birthday present . We frequented Jimmy James’s Ealing shop in those days (my father was on ‘Jimmy’ terms with him) and I had the thrill, as a young lad, of not only meeting DW on a few occasions but also being given an 6 penny arsley bomb for free by Jimmy (more than once) for my patience when the ‘grown ups’ wished to discuss thing ‘above my head’.

 

[tigger]

Contrary to what you seem to read learning the Wallis style cast is easy I have taught hundreds of people over the years though I will admit it is easier to teach young people and ladies as they tend to listen!
Casting a 100 feet with a float should be well within the grasp of most people though why you would want to rather defeats me as lets face it in a normal river trotting situation you can only loosefeed a short distance and there is no point fishing beyond it! longer casts on a stillwater make more sense but then again why bother with a pin for that job affectation I suppose...
Oh and Wallis described his cast as being in the Nottingham Style
As ever if anybody wants to learn come up and see me I don't charge but I do ask and expect that you will pass the skill on to someone else ....for free!

I'll vouch for Alans casting skills with a centrepin, although you've got to see them to belive them really. He taught me some time ago and the skill has brough me lots of pleasure and of course lots of fish .
cheers Alan.

 

[Paul Boote]

Just a very nice, quick, efficient and elegant tool in the piscatorial box, the Wallis Cast, not the Holy Grail. As a long-time, I just do it, "do-er" of thing I looked on in mystified silence and with no small degree of head-scratching "Yer what?" mirth as the Cast was given the Angling Media / Classic / Traditional treatment during the 1990s, made a must-do, can't be seen not doing it (or without a centrepin), the next Big New Thing - generally fetishized and gentrified. Still, it's well worth learning, lads; just don't make a meal of it.

 

[chavender]

This was the link that enabled me to finally learn a Wallis style cast

YouTube - ‪Modified Wallis Centerpin Cast from FloatFishingConnection.com‬‏
It may not be the 100% authentic wallis cast, but it achieves much the same thing in the same style. BTW - Nice article.

i love that clip ,and the canadian older one of the same style of casting ,they have a wonderful way of getting things back too front those yankies ,its not a modified wallis cast ,that is actually pretty much the nottingham style of casting (less the follow through with the left hand) that wallis modified ,and improved .and how i was first taught as a kid .

i even used too cast my early open faced reels (mitchell) in the same mannor ,the line taken up between spool and first rod ring by fingertip or thumb hooked over line, not a loop as such more a bow of line (sometimes locally called a robin hood cast) ,pulled too aside with rod across the body then gently swung round and the line released ie the nottingham style of casting, off the spool .the size of the bow determined the distance ,usually between 1 to 2 rod lengths ,all that was required and in later life i learnt too cast in wallis's and other wally types as well as many different styles of casting centrepins .

casting in wallis's style isn't hard ,just alien too those who have always used fixed spooled reels in the conventional manner .where force applied = distance .i actually struggle to cast a long wally cast ,as my brain tends to judge the distance, infront of me and limits the force i use without thinking about it ,i just cast too where i think its needed ,and need a big open water/space in front of me to cast far ,with wally casting, thinking about it only complicates it .and practice makes perfect .

i guess at some point everyone tries too see how far they can cast with a centrepin ,there is a cast called a bc cast (i found several years ago on the canadian/american centrepin site quest) bc =baitcasting

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRdwtsVX7d4"]YouTube - ‪Centerpin cast BC flyandfloatfishing.com‬‏[/ame]

great for 70m - 100m casts given a ½ ounce or so of shot/weight too fling ,but pretty usless in practicle fishing terms .unless your sea fishing perhaps or carp mauling on big pits or lakes .the cast is easy (very easy if you've used a multiplier /baitcaster before) but the retrieval takes forever though .

 

[Paul Boote]

Yes. For me another source of head-scratching mirth - how the guys Stateside take and take up - BIG TIME - something pretty simple and perfectly normal and ordinary, then complicate it inordinately and generally give it the / their ab/subnormal works. They do it well (Hollywood), I must say, but then they have to, "Making A Difference" being something like a National Mission Statement...

 

[guest61]

This 'article' was featured on 'Tight lines' a few months ago.

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Stay with it through the advert.

I've been using a Wallis cast when fishing my local canal in the last month or so - the fishing is great, and an underarm cast has lot of positives over attempting to fish with a Pole when there's a lot of bank side traffic.

Mark

 

[Paul Boote]

Yup, Martin knows his stuff, I thought, when I first watched those two clips a few months ago. He's a "line off the top of the reel" man, I'm a "line off the bottom" (as was F.W.K.). Line off the bottom will give you easier extra distance (when it's required), allow you to retrieve faster (handle flick with a simultaneous lowering of the rod, then lifting followed by another handle flick and lowering of the rod - very fast); be less prone to tangling in windy weather, too. Each to his own, of course.

 

[chavender]

Yup, Martin knows his stuff, I thought, when I first watched those two clips a few months ago. He's a "line off the top of the reel" man, I'm a "line off the bottom" (as was F.W.K.). Line off the bottom will give you easier extra distance (when it's required), allow you to retrieve faster (handle flick with a simultaneous lowering of the rod, then lifting followed by another handle flick and lowering of the rod - very fast); be less prone to tangling in windy weather, too. Each to his own, of course.

i shall have too try that retrieval method paul ,always looking for improvements ,i do a slightly strange method on long trot's ,as the float nears the end of the trot through, i follow its progress with the rod tip until my arm and rod is across me body (the float by this point has come of the main feedline) then drag the float back upstream across the surface untill the rod is now pointing upstream ,then flick the handle to spin the spool and as the spool spins i take up the slack line by moving the rod back downstream ,you get a little rythem of sweep & spin and you can very quickly recover line ,much faster than mearly batting the drum .

 

[the indifferent crucian]

I do that too Chavender, it returns the line nicely without loops and tangles.

I did like that clip when I first saw it, but none of us was able to work out why he'd want to use an olivette or what line he was talking about. I've done a bit of looking around and never managed to find the braid he referred to!

Certainly a very complictaed trotting rig, perhaps too much so?

 

[Paul Boote]

Yes, too complicated that multi-piece set-up, too many knots and "stuff" in it to go wrong or to go "Ping!". Sometimes use a tiny swivel to obviate hooklength twist, however.

 

[Graham Marsden]

Contrary to what you seem to read learning the Wallis style cast is easy I have taught hundreds of people over the years though I will admit it is easier to teach young people and ladies as they tend to listen!
Casting a 100 feet with a float should be well within the grasp of most people though why you would want to rather defeats me as lets face it in a normal river trotting situation you can only loosefeed a short distance and there is no point fishing beyond it! longer casts on a stillwater make more sense but then again why bother with a pin for that job affectation I suppose...
Oh and Wallis described his cast as being in the Nottingham Style
As ever if anybody wants to learn come up and see me I don't charge but I do ask and expect that you will pass the skill on to someone else ....for free!

Alan taught me to Wallis cast in my own cack-handed way a few years ago during an FM fish-in. Although I'm not an out and out enthusiast of the centre-pin, preferring the fixed-spool most of the time, I've never forgotten how to do it and it's come in handy quite often. If you get the chance for Alan to teach you then don't miss out.

 

[mick b]

I attempted to learn the Wallis cast with a tip action rod.

Changed it to a through action rod and immediatly acheived my objective.

My present ability was totaly due to watching and being advised by, the 'pin fishers of the Hampshire rivers.

From my observations, with the correct rod and any smooth running 'pin (from a Speedia to a Witcher) the elite members of the Hampshire 'pin fishers easily cast a float rig across any of their chalk rivers.
Their casting is a beauty to behold.

Gentleman, for your kind assistance I thank, and for your casting skills I salute you.