Likely ahead of myself but I tried double haul and I did feel the rod load up way more than without double haul. I know my timing is off but it was a good experience.
Big problem now is that this morning I tied on a small bass bug (popper) to practice .
My casts were far worse than with the fly line alone.
I know in fly fishing the line takes the lure as opposed to spin where it is reversed. however the popper weighs next to nothing so i don't know why the difficulty.
Wind resistance? Psychological? Other?
With the popper my distance suffered and I felt totally out of synch to the point I was getting the tippet/popper wrapped up in the rod tip.
Any simple thoughts on this problem?

Oh yea, I remember tossing a popper for the first time. It was weird. It does catch a lot of wind resistance. It just going to take practice and reps to get the feel for them. As for double hauling, I was like you. Learning it in the first week etc. I did learn it quickly, but when I took a class with Ed Jaworski, he said my double haul was compensating for some errors in my cast. So I had to go back and fix the issues without the haul. I do agree that everyone should learn it, but start to implement it after you're proficient without it so you wouldn't have take a step backwards like I did. The double haul to me is necessary. It makes casting effortless. Better to have it then not have it in my opinion.
Definitely not better until you master it. It can lead to tailing loops fouling the fly line, leader and fly. Since I do not have a video of you casting, here is what I think
may be happening with what you have described. You may be hauling too early and too hard in the casting stroke which could cause the
"the tippet/popper wrapped up in the rod tip."
Too early a haul can lead to a tailing loop. Early in the casting stoke, the rod is only slightly loaded and a sudden haul can cause the tip to bend, causing a concave dip in the SLP, causing a tailing loop. EARLY dips in the SLP will cause LATE tailing loops. You said your leader and fly was catching on the rod tip ------> a LATE TAILING LOOP.
A dip early in the rod stroke will have more time to travel down the line and cause a LATE tailing loop. A dip of the rod tip LATE in rod stroke will have less time to travel down the line and cause an EARLY tailing loop. This is the explanation for the seemingly paradoxical early timing of the fly rod dip and the location of the tailing loop late in the cast.
Aitor Coteron has done extensive video studies of tailing loops. He has a series of videos on Vimeo that demonstrate the timing of the rod tip dip during the casting stroke and the resultant timing of the tailing loops during the forward cast. A hard and long haul is performed during 3 forward casting strokes.
The timing of the haul is early, mid and late. The haul causes the rod tip to dip down as the fly line suddenly accelerated by the haul. This increases the energy in the cast and the rod must bend to absorb some of this energy as potential energy.
This haul simulates the timing of a sudden acceleration during the casting stroke which would cause the same rod tip dip.
Late Tail = Early Haul
Late tail on Vimeo
Middle Tail = Middle Haul
Tail in the middle on Vimeo
Early Tail = Late Haul
Early tail on Vimeo
The dip of the rod tip can be VERY VERY difficult to see, even with slow motion. See the analysis in the discussion below:
Mysterious Creature Rides Again << One More Last Cast
Finally, if a beginner mistimes the forward casting stoke and begins TOO EARLY, the backcast will not have extended. This means that there is too little fly line mass lined up behind the caster to load the rod for the forward cast. So the caster has to speed up the acceleration to get the forward cat to extend and this sudden acceleration causes a tailing loop.
Dissection of a Tailing Loop on Vimeo
