The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Yep, some do it like that; others make the "pulley" with the thumb, but with the index finger pressed against it to make a closed ring.

I prefer the thumb because:
-a: that's how I first learned it, via a live demo by Billy Lane at a National Angling show, ca 1965, explained in more depth by L.A. Parker in "This Fishing" and supported by a rather difficult dissection of Wallis' own description in the Badminton Library's book ("Fine Angling for Coarse Fish"???)
-and b: because it's harder to clench the "cigarette grip" on the shot than it is to forget to let go with the more natural thumb/finger grip when you're really focussing on keeping a pulley formed round the line... which probably doesn't happen if that's the way you learned it.

I remember a chap* writing , probably in the eighties, about using the Nottingham?Wallis cast for pike fishing; to prevent his hands getting cut by the line as he launched herrings at the wide blue yonder, he used a wire hook -I think it may have been a modified coat-hanger.

So many ways to skin that cat.


*Sean Greaves???

I've cut the side of my palm trying to get an extra yard or two before when ledgering! Dunno about a hook though!! Maybe o need to toughen up!

Vole, years ago, I attempted to use a cup hook screwed into a small piece of wood as a 'casting aid'. A friend of mine showed it to me (and I also might have seen it in an old book). You hold the hook at 90 degrees to the face of the ventrepin (above the centre boss), so the line runs off it as it would with a 'side caster' type centrepin. With a side caster (e.g. the 'Ray Walton' type of centrepin) you turn the reel by 90 degrees so the line flows off the pin as it would from a fixed spool reel. Using the cup hook you turn the flow of the line by 90 degrees. Hope that made some sort of sense? I could never get it to work! And you would I presume suffer line twist, though I'm not sure how important that would be in practice.

Before I learnt the wally cast I used to cast off the side of the drum, over the back of the hand. Horrible way to cast cos of the line twist.

Yes St. John, I wasn't recommending it - I'm sure you are correct. I never used it myself - tried it on a couple of sessions but didn't get on with it.

I did it for a while, but the state that the line used to get in was ridiculous! I even tried to reshape a coffin lead so that it would 'propeller' in the opposite direction! Utter waste of time!