Swing Back

        I have often seen anglers bait up accurately to a marker float and then cast well past it in order to allow the rig to swing back onto the baited area. The majority of them usually end up fishing a line right across their baited area – perhaps not the ideal situation.

What do you think the swing back, on a tight line would be if you were fishing in 10 feet of water at 100 yards range? (Excuse the Imperial units but I’m from Cornwall – home of the Metric Martyrs). So what do you reckon? 3 feet? 5 feet? 10 feet?  The actual answer is marginally less than two inches.

The amount of swing back, on a tightly clipped up line, will depend upon the distance you are casting and the depth of water the lead lands in. Swing back is increased with depth of water and shortening of distance cast. In other words if two leads are both cast the same distance into water 10 feet and 20 feet deep the swing back will be greater in 20 feet of water. If both leads were cast into 10 feet of water but at ranges of 50 and 100 yards then the swing back would be greater on the rod cast 50 yards.

An extreme example of swing back might occur with a short cast – say 30 yards, into deep water, say 20 feet. Even here the swing back would only be about 2 feet. If the water had been 10 feet deep swing back would be about 6.5 inches.

Swing back is so negligible that for the majority of the time it is not even worth considering. If you don’t clip up and let the lead fall naturally through the water then it becomes, as near as dammit, non existent. All this is courtesy of Pythagoras, a Greek carper, who solved the problem of swing back.

Kind regards,
Gert