# Anyone tried to cast without main line ?



## Sar315 (Jun 21, 2009)

i.e. if leader was not tied to main line at all.

Just wondering how much distance main line takes away.


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## Tommy (Jan 24, 2001)

I've measured a crackoff at almost 1300 feet.

Tommy


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## eric (Oct 24, 2007)

Tommy said:


> I've measured a crackoff at almost 1300 feet.
> 
> Tommy


thats a long walk.


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## Sar315 (Jun 21, 2009)

Tommy said:


> I've measured a crackoff at almost 1300 feet.
> 
> Tommy


That's a good news.

Since dragging main line takes so much distance, 
relatively simple design change might increase distance about 2 times:

First 1500 feet of main line should be wrapped around sinker 
(like on earlier remote by wires controlled anti-tank missiles)
This way no energy at all is lost on dragging main line.
Of course sinker should be modified accordingly. 
Also there should be some mechanism between leader and sinker.


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## ketch69 (Jul 8, 2001)

Sar315 said:


> That's a good news.
> 
> Since dragging main line takes so much distance,
> relatively simple design change might increase distance about 2 times:
> ...


Stop smoking that $hit an just go fishing man. You been thinking way to much.


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## BlaineO (Jan 22, 2001)

Sar315,

I don't think that approach will do anything to help the aerodynamics of the payload.

But let us know how the idea progresses, it is an interesting thought.

Blaine


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## curtisb (Jul 21, 2004)

Sar315, the whole idea of the shocker is safety. You need a strong line to handle the stress a cast puts on that first few yards of line. I have actually hit a few cast hard enough to break the 80lb shocker so you can image if it were main line only.


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## kingfisherman23 (Dec 14, 2003)

Curtis he isn't talking about removing the shocker. He's talking about incorporating the reel and the sinker. Actually taking the reel out of the equation entirely and just having a sinker that holds line like a spinner.

A) That would sort of destroy the whole basis of the sport in fishing. Tuning and customizing reels is a good portion of this sport.

B) You'd have to develop a catch that would hold the line through the extreme pressures of the cast and then release when the rod unloaded. On a reel you can use the timing in your finger, but this release would have to be remote-triggered somehow.

Evan


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## curtisb (Jul 21, 2004)

Oh ok, to much line to have on a projectile. You would need an object to hold the line during the cast and release the line. Hmm, I think we already invented this, oh yeah the reel. You couldn't know how much line you would need, so you would have to have more than you need. Sounds like a reel again.


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## RedNano (Oct 31, 2008)

Wow .. crackoff to 1300 ft !! 

If we could unwind abt 100-200 yards of main lines from the spool and laid it neatly on the ground before the cast, the sinker might goes further .. ? 
However the griping of the line in order to load the rod while casting would be tricky and dangerous though.


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## Mark G (Nov 15, 2004)

Dragging line is dragging line-- as long as the sinker remains attached-- it must tow the line.

A crack off goes so far precisely because it is *NOT* towing line.


A finely tuned reel that is throwing line off just slightly faster than the sinker is moving away is about as good as it gets, IMO.


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## Sar315 (Jun 21, 2009)

Surf Cat said:


> Dragging line is dragging line-- as long as the sinker remains attached-- it must tow the line.


There might be no dragging line if all line is on the sinker.

For example you throws a spool with line. Spools starts rotating on release. 
During flight it will keep rotating by inertia unrolling the line. This way nothing is dragged


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## curtisb (Jul 21, 2004)

Sar315 said:


> There might be no dragging line if all line is on the sinker.
> 
> For example you throws a spool with line. Spools starts rotating on release.
> During flight it will keep rotating by inertia unrolling the line. This way nothing is dragged


The line would still be weight being dragged as long as it is attached to the sinker even if it is falling off. If you have a well tuned reel than the drag is about as minimal as you can get. Also don't forget that there is one force on this planet that will still cause drag no matter what you try(Gravity). Gravity starts working on the weight just like a bullet fired from a gun as soon as it is released.


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## Mark G (Nov 15, 2004)

Sar315 said:


> There might be no dragging line if all line is on the sinker.
> 
> For example you throws a spool with line. Spools starts rotating on release.
> During flight it will keep rotating by inertia unrolling the line. This way nothing is dragged


Think about how bulky that would be-- a baseball is approximately the same mass (weight) as a 150 gram sinker-- but the sinker travels much farther-- a bulky object encounters much more air resistance-- and travels much less distance-- even if initial velocity is the same.

In theory the spool would have to carry the entire weight of all the line from the very start-- a traveling sinker only carries additional line as it is thrown off the spool (conventional reel). This means a sinker that has traveled 100 feet is only towing 100 feet of line --- not 900 feet or more.

Here's an experiment for you-- take a spool of line and tie off one end to a fixed point on your rod-- try throwing that spool and see what happens-- inertia will only keep the spool spinning for a very short time-- and most likely it will wind up turning and flipping out of control-- it is not on a spindle with bearings-- it simply won't stay balanced as line is pulled off.

One last point-- how do you load a rod up-- without the spool starting to spin before you want it to ?


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## Mark G (Nov 15, 2004)

Sar315 said:


> There might be no dragging line if all line is on the sinker.
> 
> For example you throws a spool with line. Spools starts rotating on release.
> During flight it will keep rotating by inertia unrolling the line. This way nothing is dragged


Perhaps a point of clarification will help-- when we say line is being dragged or towed-- we don't mean the sinker is using energy to "pull" the line off the reel spool-- that only happens with a spinning reel-- a properly tuned conventional reel will throw the line off the spool faster than the sinker is moving away (often too fast  ) so the only job the sinker has is to travel with a free flowing line behind it.

It does sap a small amount of energy from the sinker intially as this force is used to get the reel spool spinning up to speed-- but once spinning the reel will do the rest of the work.

It is the line encountering air resistance "after" it has left the rod-- that causes drag on the sinker.


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## curtisb (Jul 21, 2004)

The sinker because of gravity is only going to go as far as the energy imparted on it(Tommy's 1300' breakoff). Yes his breakoff went farther than he has ever casted but gravity still kept it from continuing on. If a line broke off perfect right at the eye of the sinker than the force used to propel it would determine how far it would go before gravity brought it back down to earth. There is no cheap way to gain more distance(legally anyways). It takes the right equipment, a good form and lots of practice to achieve very long casts.


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## kingfisherman23 (Dec 14, 2003)

I think Sar's idea is that the line be wrapped around the back of the sinker, like a backwards-facing spinning reel spool. Then, the way the line is coming off would mean that the sinker is actually not dragging line at all.

Think about two coils of rope. One coil is set on the ground, you pick up the loose end and start walking. You are towing the line. Now on the second coil you hold the coil and attach the loose end to the ground. Again you walk away from the fixed point. The rope is no longer being dragged or towed, you just get slight resistance from the rope being pulled off your hand.

If that makes any sense...

Evan


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## curtisb (Jul 21, 2004)

I agree with Surf, there isn't much line drag on a well tuned conventional reel.


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## kingfisherman23 (Dec 14, 2003)

You're right, that's the whole theory behind fluffing your reel for max distance. The reel is actually throwing line off the spool before the sinker has to pull it off.

Time for my own clarification. I was talking about air resistance in my post above, not spool resistance. In the analogy, the dragging on the ground would be akin to air resistance.

Evan


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## Mark G (Nov 15, 2004)

kingfisherman23 said:


> I think Sar's idea is that the line be wrapped around the back of the sinker, like a backwards-facing spinning reel spool. Then, the way the line is coming off would mean that the sinker is actually not dragging line at all.
> 
> Think about two coils of rope. One coil is set on the ground, you pick up the loose end and start walking. You are towing the line. Now on the second coil you hold the coil and attach the loose end to the ground. Again you walk away from the fixed point. The rope is no longer being dragged or towed, you just get slight resistance from the rope being pulled off your hand.
> 
> ...



It doesn't. 


The line becomes a "drag" on the sinker as soon as it "falls" away if you will. And to stay attached it has to fall away immediately-- in either event a sinker that has traveled 500 feet will now be towing 500 feet of line.

Not only that, but the bulky line wrapped around the sinker is an immediate disadvantage -- it's like tossing a sinker with a balloon attached to it. The bulky object encounters a ton more air resistance.


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## Mark G (Nov 15, 2004)

> it's like tossing a sinker with a balloon attached to it


LOL- I just got a picture in my head of someone running outside and tying a ballon to a sinker to see what happens.   

THis thread does have some entertainment value, at any rate....


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## curtisb (Jul 21, 2004)

Well sounds like Sar is trying to get more distance the easy way if you read both his posts on here(this one and the one about the sinkers). Like I said, there is no easy(legal) way to acheive more distance without putting forth the effort to acheive it. There are rules with every casting club and the equipment must meet these rules. Like auto racing you try to make everything the same except the caster, this way you know it was him that acheived the distance and not some unfair advantage.


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## Mark G (Nov 15, 2004)

curtisb said:


> Well sounds like Sar is trying to get more distance the easy way if you read both his posts on here(this one and the one about the sinkers). Like I said, there is no easy(legal) way to acheive more distance without putting forth the effort to acheive it. There are rules with every casting club and the equipment must meet these rules. Like auto racing you try to make everything the same except the caster, this way you know it was him that acheived the distance and not some unfair advantage.


I wasn't sure if he was even referring to tournament casting-- just figured he might be the next one looking to join the "spud" gun mentality of fishing. 

Not that there's anything wrong with spud guns, mind you...


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## curtisb (Jul 21, 2004)

Surf Cat said:


> I wasn't sure if he was even referring to tournament casting-- just figured he might be the next one looking to join the "spud" gun mentality of fishing.
> 
> Not that there's anything wrong with spud guns, mind you...


Wasn't sure either, but why even fish if you have to use a cannon or gun to launch your bait. Kinda like guys who use kayaks and canoes why not just go out and by a boat and fish from it. If that's what you want to do than fine but there are alot more fish off shore than inshore you can catch from a boat. I know alot of shark fisherman use kayaks but because their rigs can no way cast far enough to were they fish from. Ever try to throw a 9/0 with 100lb line on a 10' telephone pole with a couple pounds of weight and bait 200yds. But I have seen guys using regular surf rods and reels using yaks(guess yaks are the new to have fishing tool).


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## TideJones (Aug 29, 2008)

*Only one that makes sense.*

Ketch69 had it right.


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## smartie (May 6, 2008)

You are really going back in time.

Here is a picture of casting in the 1920/30s on the East coast of England

The line is laid out on the beach in a neat manner the leader has a loop conveniently tied at around 6/8ft from the weight. Loop is placed on a steel pin in the end of the casting pole. The cast is like todays backcast. Up to 100 yds of cutty hunk could be sent seawards with weights around 6/8 ounces.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d134/DaveVen/new-1.jpg

This method can still be seen on our beaches it is used by guys to clear snags and retrieve old tackle


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## Hudak (Sep 10, 2007)

Now that is interesting. I like seeing how they "used ta do it". Thanks for that.


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## Mark G (Nov 15, 2004)

LOL--- I was envisoining something akin to a yo-yo --- with a large capacity to hold plenty of line.


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