The first serious fishing tackle that I got was bait casting tackle. I liked it so much then and now that it became the subject of fishing book I penned later in life.
I was not given this tackle â I earned it through neighborhood chores. Back then, rods were not made limber and of graphite and reels did not have star drags, magnetic or centrifugal cast control devices, and lacked the free spool feature of modern reels.
What was required in the early days was an âeducated thumbâ. Lack of control on the rapidly rotating spool would backlash â tangle â the line so badly that you would need new line if you could not untangle the mess with a crochet needle.
The disadvantages of bait casting then and now are that you cannot cast lures as light as those possible to throw with spinning tackle. It was possible to add a casting weight of a water or oil filled (or partially filled) clear plastic bubble, or drill a hole in a hollow plastic lure to fill it with water. All these methods added the weight necessary to cast light lures or with the bubble, even flies.
Today, reels with cast control methods make backlashes a thing of the past although the best casting is practicing until you can tune down the cast control to the minimum necessary. This gives you the maximum distance and also helps with accuracy.
The best cast is overhead. A side cast with a fishing buddy nearby can have him wearing a face full of treble hooks â not a good thing.
A cast that I particularly like is low cast in which you spin the rod tip in a circle and at the underpart of this spin, release the lure to fly out low and parallel to the water surface. This cast is best made with the rod tip below the horizontal and casting to the side â not directly in front of you. For me as a right hander, it works best with me in the boat with the angling target to my left so that I can hold the rod low and rotate the tip clockwise to release the cast with the lure at the bottom of the spin.
This low angled cast is particularly good for bass, pike or other predatory ambush gamefish that hide in aquatic grass, next to brush or beneath low hanging tree limbs. This low trajectory cast allows the lure to land gently with less possibility of scaring the fish.
Because of the nature of this cast, after about ten casts it might have a few very slight line overruns, at which point make a long cast in open water to clear any future possible line tangles.
With a rubber or plastic casting plug picked up from your local tackle shop, you can practice this in the backyard, hitting flower pots, dog food bowls, shrubs and other targets to get this just right for when you are on the water next.
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