February 27, 2025
By Ed Jaworowski; Filming by Ben Annibali
EDITOR'S NOTE: Casting master Ed Jaworowski takes a deep dive into the fundamentals of fly casting in his five-part series “Functional Fly Casting,” a series that runs in each issue of Fly Fisherman in 2025. For the full story you can subscribe at flyfisherman.com (they will send the previous issue and you will get the five part series for $15) or you can find the magazine on sale nationwide at fly shops, Barnes & Noble, Hudson News, Walmart, and many other vendors.
This is the second in a series of five articles examining the physics and mechanics that determine the outcomes of all casts, based on Ed Jaworowski's nearly 70 years of casting, testing, experimentation, teaching, and consulting with physicists, kinesiologists, and engineers.
In the previous video, I discussed the nature of acceleration. Now I'll build on that by looking at an essential feature of acceleration which, for convenience, I'll simply term "rotation," although we could call it "pivoting," or simply "turning."
By using your whole body and rotating at the waist, you use your hips as a fulcrum for better performance. The idea isn’t always to cast longer or harder, the goal is to cast smarter. Golfers, tennis players, and baseball players all use their bodies to increase efficiency while using class 3 levers. Good fly casters should do the same.
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Since casting involves kinesiology–the mechanics of body movements–rotation is really an intrinsic part of acceleration, and occurs simultaneously. It is not a separate or additional move that turns over the hand at the end of the cast. The hand starts turning the instant it begins moving, and just as the hand accelerates, moving ahead faster and faster, it is also turning more and more until that instant stop.
Observe your hand, and the rod shaft, when you grasp a rod grip and very slowly move your hand by bending at the wrist or moving your forearm as you would when casting. You’ll note immediately that they are turning from the first instant. The hand and rod rotate in all casts, and throughout every cast during the time it takes to make the stroke. Just as you can’t load the rod without accelerating, you can’t load it without rotation.
In the next video, I’ll explain another factor I call “the critical angle,” which makes casting still easier and more efficient.
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For the full story you can subscribe at flyfisherman.com (they will send the previous issue and you will get the five part series for $15) or you can find the magazine on sale nationwide at fly shops, Barnes & Noble, Hudson News, Walmart, and many other vendors.
