To continue the topic of practice in the backyard:

How much mono in terms of lenght does one use for back yard practice? 7-9'

I ended up getting the Cabelas RLS combo I linked in a previous post, a 9' 5wt, came with the backing, WF line and leader, it arrived earlier this week, had the day off today sooooo....... ran some errands this morning, then this afternoon I stopped by one section of my home lake that has a fishing pier thinking this would be a good place to practice with the fly rod. I did not remove any of the leader that came on it from Cabelas, and is about 7-9' in lenght (guessing here). Started casting and rod felt good but since this is my first fly rod, have nothing to compare to.

I did notice some things so I'm gonna ask some dumb questions for the more experience fly casters:

Is it normal to "hear" the line and leader swishing or cutting thru the air as the line goes back and forth with the casting motion? You might hear a slight noise, but not much. You might be using too much effort and not letting the rod do the work. You can definitely make it noisy.

I did not have lure on at this time, just the WF line and leader and could hear it, and occassionally a slight popping sound behind me . I assume the popping sound would be the "cracking of the whip" I've read about which is not a good thing either (bad timing ??) on the movement and change of direction during the cast. I did have a good line loop most (?) of the time on my forward cast, could not tell on the back cast, was afraid to look and the thought of getting smacked in the face with line/leader did not appeal to me all that much. Don't be afraid to watch your backcast. It's actually good to watch your backcast, especially when you're just starting out.

After a while, I tied on a Betts small popper with legs, the smallest in a variety pack I ordered when I ordered the rod combo. Still heard the line cutting thru the air, so starting to assume this is normal, but did not hear the slight popping sound behind me anymore. I still had the original lenght of leader on when I tied the small popper on. Soon started to hear a slight thump behind me, (remember I am on a fishing pier with a 3' high railing). I soon buried the hook in the railing (the popper hitting the railing behind me was the slight thump I had been hearing). Pretty much ruined that popper, as the slight thumps I had heard took their toll on that little sucker. Try to keep your backcast high. Think UPcast more than BACKcast.

Now for my question about casting with the popper:
The package said (I read this AFTER I was finished with this practice session) to attach the poppers in this variety package to a leader of 4-6' in length, and I had the original length of 7-9' of leader. Will the extra 3-5' of leader affect the casting of a small Betts popper or any smiliar size popper, and to what extent. I noticed in my casts with the popper, that the popper was traveling in what I assume is a figure 8 path. I had a nice line loop on my forward cast but on the backward motion, the popper would fall forward/over and then come up as it was approaching me/my position, continuing to rise. Shorter leaders are easier to cast, but longer leaders are usually better for fishing. Also, bigger flies like poppers are harder to cast. What size is the leader (what X)?

Sorry for being wordy, but trying to give enough detail so someone may be able to visualize what was going on since no one else was there to see it.