Minutes to Learn, Lifetime to Master

Had about 2 hours of free time early this evening, so I thought I'd go to Shadow Cliffs to give my 12ft Iwana a try. There are some pretty nice arroyos in the backside of the park, which I thought may be a good area to scout out, plus I heard there are tons of voracious little panfish swimming around in the arroyo too.

Arroyo At Shadow Cliffs Regional Park

All in all I only had a line on the water for a total of about 40 minutes, the rest of the time I spent untangling my line because of terrible casting technique. I was pretty much just whipping the rod back and forth in a continuous motion, now I know that way of casting the rod is incorrect, hence all the avoidable tangles I got.  For my set-up I was using a 4.5 Level Line that was 1.5 times the length of my rod and a 4ft 5X tippet, this may be a good setup for a veteran Tenkara fisher, but definitely too much for a beginner to handle.

Top: Line Holder with Level Line, Tippet, and Fly
Bottom: #12 Brown Mayfly (just for practice, I believe the hatch season is over)

That's what I get for being so hasty, I should have spent some time reviewing/practicing casting in my backyard before I took it to the water.  But anyway, towards the end of my little venture into Shadow Cliffs, after being very frustrated with myself for lack of ability and preparation, I took a moment to review some casting technique (thanks to some videos I put on my iPod) and shorten my level line to about 12ft (same as the rod) and tippet down to 3ft.  With this new setup and tutorial on casting, I was able to get a few nice casts out there and present the fly nicely on the water before I had to leave.  I will definitely be practicing a bit more before I head out next time.  This was definitely a learning experience and hopefully next time I will have a fish on!