After a few tries, each time dialing back my effort, I found that I could reach the piling with much less force.
"Now you are ready for the double haul," Jaworowski said as he demonstrated. "With your line hand, you add in a fast crisp pull as you begin your back cast and then pull once again on the forward cast. The goal is acceleration and then a sudden stop. While the motion of your rod hand serves to flex the rod, pulling down on the line with your other hand puts pressure on the rod tip and bends it even more."
With the thumb and forefinger of his line hand pressed together and his pinkie raised, Jaworowski released a thrillingly long cast. In seeming defiance of gravity, the coiled line flew through the guides. And it was all done with a relaxed and easy motion. "If you are doing it right, you should never need more than one false cast," he added.
I parroted his motion and, sure enough, less was more. My style is similar to Jaworowski's -- I favor a three-quarter motion rather than coming over the top, which is the traditional but mechanically less efficient method of fly-casting.
For any experienced caster, the difficulty is not learning to haul. Rather, it is learning economy of force. A lot of histrionic straining and gymnastics only means that you are wasting motion and energy in a misapplication of physics, and, as Jaworowski might have put it to his students at Villanova, Omnino physicus iactus muscarius -- or, "All fly-casting is physics."
Fishy facts
* The best time for fishing in Taiwan is from November to March
* Common varieties of fish include the drummer, the bream and the whitespotted rabbitfish
* Boat fishing and trolling are popular
* Spring and summer are most suitable for beach fishing for small fish such as spotted sandborers and thornfish
* Most large fresh water fish, like the Formosan Salmon, are endangered species
* Some reservoirs and large lakes have fish, even large fish
* Many fishing enthusiasts visit the offshore islands that have abundant clean waters and excellent fishing spots
* FreshTreks (www.freshtreks.com) organizes deep sea boating trips
Sources: Fisheries Agency, Council of Agriculture and Tourism Bureau
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