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Winter 2018
Practice these three
2
Fear the Backlash
Never learned to skip because you didn’t want to waste eight spools of line backlashing during practice? There’s a simple fix for this.
tips and you too could recapture what is quickly
becoming the lost art of
target casting.
As we said earlier, Dunkin used to practice in his driveway as a kid. How?
“A jig skips on concrete just like it does on calm water,” Dunkin said. “So, I’d go out on my driveway with
Make a cast only as far as you figure you would ever need to pitch or skip a lure. Then, take a piece of electrical tape, place it on your spool and reel in your line. From then on, you can only let out that much line, which means, even if you backlash,
a junky jig, a bucket and a
folding chair. I’d practice
for hours trying to skip into the bucket or skip under the lowest rung of a folding chair. It’s the same premise as out on the water, but the concrete doesn’t grab your jig, so far less backlashes.”
you can only backlash up to that piece of tape. It will minimize your backlashes, and even if you get a really bad one, you only lose a small section of line instead of the entire spool.
If you just want to practice pitching, that can be done anywhere, even a basement. Simply find an elevated position and a target. As you get better, shrink the target or make it more challenging.
3
A Chair, a Bucket and a Driveway
page 34
You don’t need to be on the water to practice casting. In fact, you don’t even need water, necessarily.
“The entire goal of a good cast is to keep the lure as low to the water as you can to it makes the least amount of impact when it hits the water,” Dunkin said. “So, there’s no worry of hitting the ceiling or anything inside your house. Just make sure to clip off the barb, so you don’t hook the carpet.” •