Photo by Henrik Mortensen of Salmologic.
By Skip Clement
With the Henry Fly Rods post redesign and release just about a month away, the need for a demo video showing the benefits of shorter and lighter rods, with extendable butts and oversized handles, enabling encumbered anglers with stiffened joints, weakness due to age, or even a prosthetic, to overcome those impairments.
We needed to show precisely how common but strictly adhered to Scandinavian style casts, as advocated by Henrik Mortensen, better delivers a fly in terms of accuracy and with improved distance than someone, in many cases, unencumbered by physical limitations.
Serendipitously, a participant in our test program, Mike Zempelli, said that he’d seen a casting demonstration several years ago in London by Henrik Mortensen, and his advocacy mirrors Henry Fly Rod & Reel Company‘s endorsement.
His Scandinavian casting technique strictly emphasizes a counter-intuitive relaxed cast which is, strangely, an embrace of less is more, or work less hard to cast longer with improved accuracy to meet, in the higher weight rods for example, reaching tarpon and spinner sharks.” — Mike Z
The uniqueness of rod design by Mortensen is also a positive addition to his strict casting technique. We have not yet adopted his signature handle, but it is in development.
Here’s a link to Mortensen’s website — and here is the video showing Henrik Mortensen’s casting. Please pay close attention to his hands – learning why he calls it ‘Underhanded Casting.’
