Good day everyone, I'm Braden Schuch here for Daiwa Australia. Today I'm going to be taking you through a couple of different bait casting techniques today. We're going to be doing four, the first one being just the standard overhead cast. The second being just a roll side cast, the third, a pitch and then the fourth being a variation of the pitch, which I do quite a lot of. So stay tuned and we'll get into it.

Overhead Cast

Righteo guys, so the first one we're going to be looking into today would just be the standard over the head cast. This is a great cast just to get your bait just generally out into the area. You can get really long casts with them and it's probably the easiest to to start off with with a bait cast if you're just starting up. So we're going to be taking the rod up to about one to two o'clock and then releasing at about 10 to 11 o'clock so we're going to just be bringing it back and then running through like that with the motion there. So we're just going to go on out and release just like that there.

We'll do that one again. So out and release. So with this one you want roughly about two foot of line coming out of the tip of your rod. And then you want to be keeping, with all these casts, you just want to have it all in one motion so there's no jolting or anything like that where there's slack in your line because then that'll jolt it around. You'll get birds' nests and nobody wants that. So we want to be nice, clean motion and around like that.

Roll Cast

Righteo, up next we've got the roll cast. So the side cast, this one can be done either to the right or to the left depending on how you reel your bait caster. So this one's generally the same as an overhead cast, so we're just going to be coming around and releasing it about 90 degrees off the body. Again, this is one I do more than often. This is a great one for what I find for hard baits because a lot of the hard baits these days have got weights in the tail, so you can really swing it around, kick that weight back. And then it's going to run true through the air so it won't do any somersaults and stuff like that, get caught up in the wind. So we're going to be, again, we're going to have about two foot of coming off the rod tip coming around and releasing.

So again, around and release. So this is a great technique to learn because then if you want to further that one, you can get into skip casting and some other stuff like that so that's a really good one to have in the arsenal.

Pitch Cast

Third up, we've got the pitch. So this one is a really good close quarters cast. So if you only want to get it out there, 10 to 15 foot, but you want to pinpoint a snag or a bit of rock or some weed line or something like that. So that's a great one for this. So we're going to have roughly about as much line back to the reel, that's a general start. You can vary that up when you get more comfortable and find what works best for you. So you want to be doing that and then we're just going to be pulling it down like that. We're going to have the rod tip low and then we're going to release, again, just in one motion so there's no jolts or slack in the line or anything like that.

I find bringing the butt of the rod up past my wrist like that so you can just drop that tip a bit better works well for me. So we're just going to be just going like that there. So it's just going to be a nice release. This one's great for spinner baits, chowder baits, jigs, weedless plastics. If you are going to be doing it with treble bites, just be very careful not to get a treble in your finger because that's definitely a possibility here. With treble baits, I generally just hold the front of the line and then you can just release the finger out and then you're out of the way of any hooks, which is the safest way I find.

Combo Cast

Perfect. And last of all, this is what I call a variation to a pitch cast. So it's pretty much identical to a pitch except for you're not using your left hand or in this case your right hand as you'll see in a minute. So you're not touching the bait in any way using the pendulum back and forth. So you're going to just get it out there to start with and when you wind back in, then you're just going to let it pendulum back and then out. So it's very simple, just pendulum out and it's just one motion, no jolting, no nothing like that. It's just going to, as it pendulums up out of the water, you're just going to open the bail arm or open the release and then you're going to go through.

That one's really good for far end casts so you want to get, if you're working a weed line or a bank or something like that that you really just want to just in and out, in and out, in and out, that's a really good cast for that. It saves a lot of time. I use this technique quite a lot just in and out and you can really, if you practice it enough and get good at it, you can really pinpoint targets and it's very effective.

Righteo guys, I hope those four casting techniques help you out next time you're on the waters. Now's a good chance to practice. Don't forget Daiwa's doing a casting challenge, a trick shot casting challenge, which finishes on the 18th of April where you can have a chance to win a Tatula rod and reel combo. So jump over onto their Instagram and check it out. So good luck guys, and I hope you can get around them.

Meet Braden Schuch
Daiwa Digital and Creative Coordinator

The newest member to join Daiwa Australia's Marketing Team, Braden is as comfortable in front of the camera and on the edit desk as he his flipping jigs amongst the trees for bass.