It’s rarely a good idea to offer unsolicited advice to a spouse, particularly concerning three topics: driving a motor vehicle, anything to do with golf, and casting a fly rod.
However, the other day I went fishing with my wife, Sarah, and she found a nice trout feeding along the bank. Though she is a good caster, she was having trouble finding the target. A lefty, she’d make a cast, but then the leader would kick over—almost like she was making a curve cast—right at the end and land a couple feet to the side of the feeding trout. I watched all this tight-lipped, of course.
Finally, she asked—that was the key, she asked—what she could do better. I knew right away what the problem was. It was obvious from my vantage point on the bank, but she probably didn’t even feel it in the moment of working that big fish.
Her casting arm was flying around, almost like she was throwing a baseball.
“Pretend you have a copy of TROUT magazine and tuck that under your casting armpit,” I suggested. “That will tuck your elbow in closer to your body and straighten out the cast.”
She did that, made a straight cast, and boom, caught the fish.
It’s hard to be accurate when your casting arm is flying around and inconsistent. Pack everything in, and you get that consistency back.
Next time you’re just a little bit off, try “tucking it in” and see if that helps.