So if you find a great spot with your marker, and get clipped up, how far should you clip for the spod? As it turns out it’s not the same as your marker, but shorter. Take a look at this chart, and say the water is 20 feet deep, follow this line and you will see that you need to take off approximately 5 feet from you casting distance. This is of course not set in stone as many factors such as wind, line type, and other factors can impact this. This chart is based off of 1 foot of line for every 4 feet of water and seems to be a fairly close approximation of what you might expect.
Keep in mind that if it’s windy you will need to give more line as you will get a large bow in you line as you cast. Stay tuned for my next article on accurate baiting and bait placement where I will discuss how I try and maximise my baiting accuracy.