1088 FOREST AND STREAM 
WHY AND WHAT IS THE SURF CAST? 
HISTORY AND EXPLANATION OF AN EVER 
INCREASING POPULAR ANGLING SPORT 
By Switch Reel. 
S OME years ago a style of bait casting was 
brought out in England known as the Holt- 
Schooling double-hand overhead cast. It is 
equally adapted to fresh and salt water fishing, 
and particularly to the surf. 
The author of the cast states that it is essen¬ 
tially a fishing cast, although it can hold its own 
in tournament casting, except in competition with 
a few crack side-swing men. 
In its delivery the caster stands facing the di¬ 
rection of the cast. The right hand is just above 
the right shoulder, grasping the rod at the reel 
seat. The left hand grasps the butt of the rod 
and is forward of and horizontal to the reel. The 
tip points directly backward. It is lowered a bit 
by raising the left hand and immediately the rod 
is brought over by a downward pull with the left 
hand, the right hand at the shoulder being the 
fulcrum upon which the cast turns. 
For accuracy of direction no better cast can be 
devised. 
Last year the United States won the world’s 
record for a cast with the four-ounce lead. The 
thanks of the country are due to Mr. J. School¬ 
ing-Holt, as well as to two members of the Ang¬ 
lers’ Club of New York, Mr. E. B. Rice and Dr. 
Held, for starting us on the trail which led to 
the honor of having made “the longest cast in the 
world.” 
As the train of circumstances may be some¬ 
what obscure, the following incident may be re¬ 
called. 
In 1909, soon after the Schooling-Holt cast had 
received wide discussion in the columns of the 
Fishing Gazette, Mr. Rice and Dr. Held appeared 
at the tournament of a prominent surf fishing 
club with long rods and silk lines. They swept 
all before them, the former casting a three-ounce 
lead 305 feet, and establishing an American rec¬ 
ord for that weight. As the commonly used 
American rod at that time was about 7% feet 
over all and silk lines in the surf somewhat taboo, 
there was a little pique following the fine achieve¬ 
ments of the two courageous ones. 
It found expression in two ways. The tourna¬ 
ment committee of the club put an eight-foot 
limit on rods and ruled flatly against silk lines. 
It must have been some wise, little, good angel 
sitting upon the crest of a foaming breaker that 
put such a repressive idea into the heads of the 
committee, for the second way in which the pique 
found expression was an enthusiastic effort by a 
few hopeful casters to exceed the record in 
spite of the repression. 
By making the most of the lesson taught by the 
long rods and the light lines, they persevered, 
the effort becoming easier a few years later when 
the rod limit was placed at' nine feet. 
Crowding the rod limit to the utmost, seeking 
a linen line whose weight approximated silk, and 
favored by the best reels in the world, at least 
twenty of our men have become able to do better 
than 360 feet, and the Schooling-Holt cast has 
made no headway here. That it will ever find 
popularity with us despite its beauty and accu¬ 
racy is doubtful as long as the rod limit remains 
to handicap it. 
A style has grown up, however, which com¬ 
bines as much of its accuracy as 'possible with 
all the power of the old “side swing.” Its dis¬ 
tinguishing feature is that the right hand goes 
over in exactly the way it does when making an 
“overhand” throw with a baseball, wherefore it 
may be termed the overhand cast until a better 
term be found. 
Words are incapable of giving as good an idea 
of the cast as the accompanying illustrations do. 
The caster does not “set” for the delivery, but 
rather bends backward and “springs” for it. The 
backward swing of lead and rod is timed to coin¬ 
cide with that of the body, and when legs, body 
and arms are at their greatest extension, they 
commence the transfer of their force to the roci. 
The tension of the latter smoothly increases as it 
moves over until it would seem that the frail 
six-thread line should break. Then comes the 
release. 
The mechanical principle of the overhand cast 
is that of a spring bent backward, its anchorage 
being a triangle whose base is the space between 
the feet. The right leg and foot act as a prop 
in starting the cast, and at about the instant of 
release the foot goes forward, and in that posi¬ 
tion again acts as a prop to maintain the equi¬ 
librium of the body after the work has been done 
and the lead is in flight. 
Undoubtedly the American overhand style is 
capable of achieving the greatest distance which 
man can make, as it brings into play every mus¬ 
cle of body, legs and arms that can possibly aid, 
and the caster extends his reach to the limit. 
The whole pose is typical of force. 
The danger of over-running is great in the 
overhand cast with the popular American reel, 
because our reels are a- bit heavier than the 
iw.ooden reels used abroad and are built and bal¬ 
anced to attain the highest freedom of revolu¬ 
tion ; whereas an advantage claimed for the Holt- 
Schooling reel is that it can be adjusted so that 
its bearings bind to eliminate -the danger of over¬ 
running. The price paid for the elimination of 
the danger is the loss of distance. Our men will 
not pay the price, but prefer to face the danger 
and overcome it by accurate and extremely deli¬ 
cate thumbing or checking. Again, roughness 
points to disaster. 
In the English style, a 10 foot 6 inch rod, with 
reel seat 24 inches from the butt, becomes a lever, 
the right hand acting as the fulcrum. Its power 
is about 4% to 1. The arc through which the 
tip travels has a radius of 10 feet 6 inches minus 
24 inches, or 8 feet 6 inches. In the overhand 
cast the point upon which it turns is the left 
foot, and the radius of the arc, which the tip of 
a nine-foot rod describes, is about 14 feet in the 
case of a six-foot man, for the cast goes over 
with the right arm extended fully and the left 
hand at about the level of the eyes. 
In the overhand cast, therefore, a nine-foot rod 
is about the equivalent of a sixteen or seventeen- 
foot rod in the Holt-Schooling cast, depending 
upon the distance between the hands in the latter. 
Thus it becomes clear why American rods and 
American style have made the world’s record. 
In order that the confession shall be complete, 
a word as to reels becomes necessary. The 
American reel differs from the English in two 
important respects. The spindle or spool of the 
American reel revolves between two fixed plates, 
and there are bars or a curved shield half way 
around the reel holding them in place. Checking 
is therefore accomplished with the thumb upon 
the spooled line. Indeed, it is termed “thumb¬ 
ing.” The English wooden reel seems crude in 
its construction compared to the American metal 
and hard rubber beauty. The Holt-Schooling reel 
is so constructed that its bearings may be caused 
to bind in order to prevent a too rapid delivery 
of line. The American caster boasts that his 
reel will spin freely for six to ten minutes under 
the impetus of one strong twirl of the handle. 
The handle in the Schooling reel is attached di¬ 
rectly to the spool. The handle in the best Amer¬ 
ican reels is provided with an arrangement to 
disengage the gears so that the spool is entirely 
free from the retarding influence of the handle 
in the delivery of the cast. 
In the Schooling cast the weight pulls the line 
from the slow running reel. In the American 
cast the momentum of the spindle imparts the 
initial motion to the line and the lead is only re¬ 
quired to continue it. 
Under these conditions, a given amount of en¬ 
ergy imparted to the lead is ’ bbund to 'yield a 
longer cast than if the lead must expend a con¬ 
siderable portion of its energy in turning the reel 
and imparting initial velocity to each successive 
inch of line taken therefrom. 
The American reel vivifies the line. The Holt- 
Schooling reel yields a dead line. 
