"Samurai" Fly Shop

Just this week I happened to bump into a video by Paul Arden on changing the grip during the cast. The maneuver is called the “Grip Shift” although there is what I suspect is a misspelling in the video’s title, “Shift” is spelled “Sniff”.

I like Paul’s videos, I think he does a good job and his Sexyloops.com site is a real resource for casting information. That said, I have followed him enough to watch his own casting evolution going on and I try to only watch the more current videos. This particular video had been out only a few days and it’s not his “grip shift” move that caught my attention. Rather, I noticed that he mentioned using the ring finger to add rotational power by flicking the rod at the end of the cast.

Well my latest style uses an open and grip and a natural rotational drift at the end of the back cast which leaves the rod butt slightly kicked up toward my fingers. Until I saw Paul’s video it never occurred to me to use my ring finger on the forward cast to flick the rod. I added this to my style, really only on long casts where I need to incorporate the rotational drift. Well the results appear to be incredible. I need to do some yard casting but I can tell a real difference in distance when fishing.

Paul suggests that his “grip shift” is not for everybody and I guess I should make the same warning in that using the rotational drift I use with the ring finger flick is probably not for everybody, but I thought folks might be interested. I have Paul’s video below and the portion I picked up on is from 2:00 to to 2:24, although my grip starts open and stays open, I don’t shift my thumb to the top. I am just using the ring finger to turn the rod over at the very end of the cast.

Anyway, little things like this can add up, so I’m passing it on.