The Cast
by Ed Jaworowski
Description: This is the paperback edition of Ed Jaworowski's The Cast. It is 8.5" x 11 " and holds 220 pages with an index and a glossary. The foreword is by Lefty Kreh, and Kreh did the interior photographs as well; the cover shot was done by Sam Talarico. Stackpole Books is the publisher. The ISBN is : 978- 0-8117-3257-4 And last but not least, it carries a suggested retail price of $24.95
Review: Many years back, Ramsey Outdoors, in Paramus, have me come down to do a slide presentation which was to be followed with a casting demonstration by Ed Jaworowski. Having never had a chance to see Ed do a demonstration, I made it a point to stay around and watch. Now there are two types of speakers that can hold my attention. People who have a laser-like understanding of their subject, and those who can wrap humor around a topic. Either way you have my ear. Well I quickly discovered that afternoon that Ed Jaworowski is the former; he knows fly casting like you and I know our hand.
Beyond his fly casting ability, Ed is also a fine writer. Little wonder then that the hardbound edition of this book proved to be such a success. Frankly it isn't easy to write about casting. You have to be clear, careful, and very concise. After all, in a single cast a great many things go on in fairly rapid order. But Ed is up to the task.
The paperback edition contains a new introduction. In it Jaworowski offers that he has learned some new teaching techniques since the book's first appearance in 1992 - yet he goes on to say that his style of casting instruction remains the same. Here's a quote: "My whole approach is based on physical principles dealing with angles and levers and these simply don't change." It's a revealing statement for Ed does not teach casting in the traditional clock-face manner. Granted the old way worked, but Ed goes well beyond it to give the caster a much deeper and more useful insight into the mechanics of the cast.
The contents are arranged into 7 chapters. The first chapter identifies 4 pivotal principles that effect fly casting. These concepts are key to Ed's teaching method and he carries them throughout the book. Chapter 2 focuses on the basic cast, covering everything from grip and stance, to loop control and false casting. In Chapter 3, Ed introduces the roll cast, showing us how we can improve on the traditional style. Chapter 4 moves us on to distance casting, a significant subject for anglers that ply the salt, lakes or large rivers. Here Ed covers topics from shooting line, to the double haul, to shooting tapers. From there we enter Chapter 5 where Ed discusses dealing with the wind and how to throw curves casts on demand. Next in chapter 6, he covers the reach cast, the slack line cast, the puddle cast among others. This chapter also addresses working with a stripping basket, line control, the strip retrieve, and the hand twist retrieve. And the final chapter explores common casting problems and how to cure them.
Words are one thing, but casting books need plenty of clear photographs and this book has them in spades. Lefty's camera work is a great help in illustrating the various types of casts. That said I would encourage the author and the publisher to consider having Lefty do a CD or DVD with future editions. It would make a great addition to the book, allowing us to see casts both in real time and slow motion.
So who would benefit from this book? Spent time at the shore or on the stream and you quickly discover there are many anglers, who have never fully learned to cast. Its really too bad considering they often have spend considerable money on fine fly rods yet have never taken the time to improve their casting. This book goes along way in helping such anglers, by giving them not only the basics of good fly casting, but showing as well the special application casts that so often help save your day. This book is money well spent.
The End