Skipping and backhand casting

[scaleface]

Those are two skills I havent mastered . I did improve last year with my back-hand casting forcing myself to do so . I can skip with spinning gear but not so much with baitcasting .For you guys who are accomplished at it , any pointers ?

[TnRiver46]

3 minutes ago, scaleface said:

Those are two skills I havent mastered . I did improve last year with my back-hand casting forcing myself to do so . I can skip with spinning gear but not so much with baitcasting .For you guys who are accomplished at it , any pointers ?

Just keep doing it with spinning gear haha. Skipping with bait caster is tricky, most use a jig with wide trailer. Keep you thumb at the ready and err on the side of caution. Don’t bounce it off the water as early as you would with spinning. Some thread on here I read once, everyone mentioned needing a CV spool to skip a bait caster, whatever the heck that is 

[NHBull]

Following ?

[813basstard]

Couple things that helped me:

 

-don’t be afraid to fail. I’d go down certain banks I KNEW had no fish but forced me to skip. Blew many up. Cursed often. 

 

-better equipment DOES make a difference. When I went from cheap ($30-40 reels) to better ones ($100-$120)there was significant difference. I use to crank the dial up to where the line barley comes off the spool at first 

-pick bulky things to cast. Swim jig with big trailer maybe the best

 

-finally, honestly just do it when needed while you fish. Don’t see something that looks good and say “well I would, but I’m not ready yet”

Do it. Try it. Fail. Repeat. 
 

 

 

 

[NJBasstard]

Heres what helped me..

 

1. Keeping the reel set exactly as I do any other time. (No brake adjustments and loose spool tension leaving just a hair or side to side movement like I do any other time)

2. Heavier weight skips easier. (My biggest mistake was trying to skip 1/4oz jigs and light plastics. A 3/8 or 1/2 jig with a bulky trailer skips much better IMO)

3. I was just trying to hard. Once I stopped forcing it and whipping the rod so hard my skipping improved a lot. 

 

Other than those things it's all just a matter of thumb control. I'm still not great at it but I'm working on it.

 

[WRB]

Where I fish 90% of the time there isn't any need to skip cast, no residential docks.

Back hand casting occasionally when fishing with a partner if needed.

Practice, the more time you spend perfecting any casting motion the faster you will learn. I use the loop or roll cast more often then pitching or skipping for example because no need to change the tackle being used for accurate target casting. 

Tom

[PourMyOwn]

Practice skipping when you're in the middle of the lake- it takes accuracy and getting hung up out of the equation. Once you get the rythm down you're ready to lose some baits!

[GReb]

I became a professional at backhand casting fishing in the back of jon boats as a kid lol. I use both hands and make a short fast stroke. Prob not textbook but it works for me. Honestly I’m prob more accurate backhanded than forward. 
 

Still working on skipping. Some baits are easier than others. Shorter rods tend to be easier too. It’s all about angle. Watch Ott Defoe skip if you want to see what a master skipper looks like

[scaleface]

12 minutes ago, GReb said:

Shorter rods tend to be easier too.

I thought about trying a 6 foot pistol grip .

 

[suzuki2903]

a more expensive option but works wonderful is get a shimano dc reel. slx or curado k.. you can skip all day long with no issues with one of those reels! and when you arent skipping, they do everything else quite well too.

i have the slx dc and often skip under trees and docks with no issues at all. like you, i can skip a with a spinning reel easily but not a regular baitcast reel.

[JustJames]

Glen post a video of back hand casting awhile ago.

I don’t need any of those techniques either since I fish mostly alone and those docks in my lake are all floating dock with boat lift. I practice both just in case anyway.

[WRB]

If you area pro bass angler you need to perfect your casting skills, some are better at skipping then others. Watching MLF I was impressed with Andy Montgomery's casting skills he is effortless at target casting including skipping. Mark Davis admits he can't skip worth a darn with baitcasting reels and uses spinning to skip lighter lures under docks.

Tom

[Mike L]

Remember when you tried to skip a rock when you were a kid?
 

You brought your arm back and let it go flat with a flick of the wrist as low to the water as you could. 
 

Skipping with bc is a little like that if you keep the motion as you let it go. 
I only have a small amount of line off the tip of a fairly soft rod (Loomis 843C MBR) I disengage the reel as my arm goes back in a sideways motion, keeping my thumb on the spool and let it go as close to the water as I can in as a steady fluid swing as possible. 
When the rod begins to rise I stop the spool and if done right it’ll skip a pretty good ways. 

The trick is to not try to muscle it. 
If you do more times than not the lure will nose dive. 

 

 

 

Mike

[Hammer 4]

Here's a good video on dock skipping..

 

[rickyg]

The thing that helped me with skipping was learning how to roll cast.  Hammer 4 posted a good video.  Gerald does a roll cast at around 3:22 ish.  His stroke is a fair bit shorter than the one I use but he's a pro.  If you can't figure out a roll cast from that video, there are a few on youtube.  I didn't even know a roll cast existed outside of fly fishing until fairly recently.  The two roll casts aren't even similar so don't try to learn from a fly fishing video.?

[scaleface]

Swindel skips back-handed .

 

 

[Fishin Dad]

For me, buying a Daiwa Tatula SV reel helped me in the beginning and I continue to use them now.  I would actually much rather skip with a bait caster now than a spinning rod.  I did start with a spinning rod though.  Use a bait that is heavy enough but not too heavy.  5/16, 3/8 are good starting points.  Don’t try to throw it hard.  It is about your angle of approach.  It is crazy what you can do when you get the angle correct.  Hold your right bicep (if you are right handed) close to your side and roll cast with your wrist and forearm.  Once you get the release point correct, it is really not difficult with that SV spool as your thumb doesn’t have to be so exact to control the spool. I now skip weightless Senkos when I am putting them in places where a spinning rod struggles.  I usually do use a jig in that 1/4-1/2 oz. range as my skipping baits.   Anything heavier and you have to throw it harder to keep it going I feel.  Once you get it, skipping frogs under docks as well as chatterbaits get bit hard.  It has advantages for sure.  Good luck.  It is really possible for anyone with the correct equipment, time, and some confidence.  Good luck!

[MGF]

I fish from the back of a jon boat...it's what I have and I drive. Most often we're fishing our river. There's not so many docs but plenty of low hanging trees along the bank to cast under. Also, I've done plenty of fishing from the bank. There again you have to get under the trees and might have to do it back hand.

 

These days, I'm not loaded with cash so my reels aren't real expensive either. My two most used bc reels are Garcia Black Max. I can skip. I caught a bunch of fish last fall skipping a double fluke rig. Sometimes I was skipping it when I didn't need too but it was just so much fun. LOL

 

There's lots of ways to do it and there's no majic bullet...aside from maybe practice. I've got a local pond that I don't think even has fish anymore (either otters or poachers got to it). Sometimes after work I just go there and cast. I've probably been doing this long enough that I might not need that much proctice but it's fun and it can't hurt.

 

You can practice on the street (or some flat surface) but I don't get as much out of it as being on water.

[N Florida Mike]

I’m very good at it with spinning but not casting gear. Not planning to learn. - I ain’t got time for that, lol. It seems to me more of the pros use spinning anyway...just sayin’

[Sam]

Scaleface, if you use a baitcaster reel to skip you will get backlashes. It just happens. Comes with the territory.

 

Supposedly the high cost reels can help control backlashes but not 100%. Reels costing $400+ are "supposed" to keep backlashes down but not 100%.

 

If you skip with a baitcaster all I can do is tell you what a pro told me: lift the rod tip at the end of the cast.

 

I use a spinning rig to skip baits but every now and then I get the urge to use a baitcaster, knowing it will not end well. But you just got to do what you got to do. ? 

 

[Russ E]

I learned how to skip with a baitcaster, by bouncing jigs across my driveway. 

once you learn the trajectory, it is not that difficult. occasionally your bait does not skip and you will still get a few backlashes. Using a tatula sv, will make the backlashes more manageable.

while I do skip jigs, the weightless super fluke is my go to skipping bait.

I don't fish around many docks, but shipping a fluke under overhanging trees can get a lot of bites.

[MGF]

I pick the reel type mostly based on the bait and cover. I throw a weightless worm or ned rig type thing on spinning but a 3/8 oz jig, bladded jig or 5" paddletail is on bc. A frog around heavy weeds is on BC. I might want to skip any of them.

[PhishLI]

20 hours ago, Sam said:

If you skip with a baitcaster all I can do is tell you what a pro told me: lift the rod tip at the end of the cast.

That's a key element right there. I never really noticed I was doing it until someone I was showing how to skip pointed it out.

[JediAmoeba]

On 3/27/2020 at 7:43 PM, scaleface said:

Swindel skips back-handed .

And he makes it seem like if you can't do it, you may as well hang it up, go home and practice.

[BassNJake]

The tip that helped me was to make sure I was trying to skip something heavy enough

Since I throw toads a bunch, I used those to practice

They're pretty flat, have enough plastic to give them weight and can be rigged weedless

 

I practice pitching at least 3 times a week and just incorporated skipping into my routine

I'll open the garage door a little and skip under the door

You can raise or lower the door and adjust your distance to it

 

Everytime I miss, I picture my lure getting "Rejected"