Learning to fly cast well is arguably one of the greatest bottlenecks towards advancing in our sport. In our quest to improve our casting techniques, we are fortunate to have excellent resources including fly casting schools, casting instructors, and guides as well as exceptional books, articles, and videos. Fly casting instruction though remains largely qualitative and rests on the ability of the instructor or the student to critique a cast using visual observations of the motion of the fly rod and the fly line, sometimes with the aid of video capture and playback. However, many of the important motions of the fly rod during casting or either too quick or too subtle to be adequately observed by eye.

The Fly Casting Analyzer changes all that and provides completely new capabilities to support the teaching and learning of fly casting. It does so by providing immediate and quantitative measurements of the casting stroke right at your finger tips. The easy-to-use software breaks your casting stroke into its major parts and provides a quantitative measurement of each. This innovation arises from the marriage of novel sensor hardware, software, and scientific research as summarized below. We begin by describing the hardware.

The Fly Casting Analyzer hardware consists of a small sensor capsule that readily attaches to the reel seat and that also attaches to a small body-worn and hand-held Palm pilot or Palm cell phone via a small circuit box as seen below.

Fly Casting Analyzer hardware: A MEMS angular rate gyro is mounted on the reel seat of a fly rod. During fly casting, the sensor measures the rate of rotation of the fly rod and produces a signal that is collected on a Palm pilot.

The sensor capsule contains a tiny microelectromechanical (MEMS) sensor known as an "angular rate gyro" which senses the rate at which you rotate your fly rod while false casting. This rotation rate, or what we simply call the "rod speed", represents approximately 90% of the motion you give to the fly rod during normal casting. More specifically, about 90% of the speed developed by the tip of the fly rod results from your rotating this very long (9 foot!) lever. The remainder derives from translating your hand.

The motion of a fly rod is largely planar and the speed of the rod tip is largely determined by how fast you rotate the fly rod. The MEMS angular rate gyro measures this rotation rate, what we call simply the "rod speed".

So think of the sensor as a speedometer. However, rather than measuring linear speed in the units of miles (or kilometers) per hour, this sensor measures angular speed and in the units of degrees per second, what we again call simply the “rod speed”. By measuring and then storing your rod speed, we produce your unique "casting signature" which forms the basis for analyzing your casting stroke. An example casting signature is shown below for one forward cast followed by one back cast. The figure also introduces the major parts of the fly cast that are automatically analyzed by the software; continue to Terminology and Example Casts to learn more.

Click image to enlarge. An example "casting signature" showing a forward cast and back cast. The major parts of the casting stroke, which are automatically evaluated by the software, are illustrated.

The sensor data required to create your casting signature is transmitted from the sensor to the Palm pilot by the small circuit box shown in the photo below. The circuit box converts the sensor signal into a digital form that can be transmitted to the Palm pilot using an infra-red transmitter and the Palm's own infra-red port. Upon transmission, the data is stored in a user-named file and it is ready for viewing and analysis within seconds. The same file can also be later uploaded to a host computer using the standard Hotsync function for a Palm device. There is a separate program for using the Fly Casting Analyzer on a personal computer (Windows or Mac) which has several advantages including large format display, printing and group instruction. See the Tips for Fly Casting Instructors for even more information.

Click image to enlarge. The entire Fly Casting Analyzer system is composed of a sensor capsule, a (black) circuit box that transmits the sensor signal to an attached Palm pilot and a small cable that connects them. A casting signature can be immediately analyzed using the Fly Casting Analyzer software installed on the Palm.

To learn more about the science and evolution of the Fly Casting Analyzer, please refer to related articles.