Tao and The Art of Spey Casting

I've been asked not to go public with these clips. So it was only a matter of time...

We have the Single Spey:

We have the Snap-T:

And finally, following true Taoist tradition, we have the No-Cast Spey Cast:

Spey casting with a single-handed rod

Or Learning to cast again

I learned fly casting without instructors but by reading books, casting, and casting. It was in mid 80s and I was a pimple-faced teenager with a noodle fibreglass rod. Back then my books considered moving the wrist in casting as a critical mistake.

To keep a long story short, I haven't developed to be a great caster. Over the years I started to caught fish and was satisfied to my mediocre fly casting skills. At some point I reached the conclusion that only way to cast better was by applying less power. But then there is the thing called muscle memory. It has been very hard to change my casting stroke.

Beyond Overhead and Roll Casting

A few years ago I began to experiment with the underhand cast. It is widely popular here in Scandinavia, but I must confess that I haven't really mastered it. The I saw a video clip of the double spey cast with a single-handed rod. It looked familiar, and I realized that in fishing I used a cast not totally unlike the double spey. Then one day last summer I was fishing and I was casting the double spey. It felt great, and it was far more effective for the situation than traditional roll casting.



A few weeks ago a friend lent me a DVD entitled Rio's Modern Spey Casting, and I became a child again. I mean that I'm beginning to rival my kids on a competition how many times the same DVD can be watched. Simon Gawesworth has explained the basic principles of Spey casting to me so many times that they are starting to stick. Surely, in the DVD he casts mostly with a double-handed rod, but Spey casting is not about double-handed rods, it is about manoeuvring the line to position for forward cast, it is about D-loops and anchors. All these principles work with single-handed rods as well as with two-handed rods.

Wetting the line

I have been on a lake shore half a dozen times practising. The beginning was miserable. I think I managed to make every mistake possible. My D-loops were out of control, anchors either stick piles of line or nonexistent, and I apparently had no sense of timing. My hand was hurting as I tried to fix everything with power, a manly solution to everything. But my double spey was working and one switch cast out of twenty sent the line far and fine. So I returned home to listen Simon.

Last Saturday I went to the shore again.This time I had memorized the rod path for the snakeroll. I did it a dozen times and the misery continued. Only then I realized that my line was pointing to the wrong direction before the forward casting stroke. It was perfectly aligned if the direction I wanted to cast was behind me. I felt stupid when I realized that I drown a G-shape not the e-shape; clockwise instead of correct counter clockwise e-shaped rod path. I changed it and snakeroll started working, the anchor was right there where it was supposed to be. I added the splash-and-go timing of the airborne anchor cast and the line was flying and unrolling beautifully.



It felt great. And all the sudden I managed the switch cast and the single spey as well. All these casts have the airborne anchor. Splash-and-go, and it did.

My Spey casting has only began. There are lots of faults to be fixed. It is still quite common that the line (and my self esteem as a caster) falls down into a messed pile of misery. But when I concentrate well, have patience, and don't apply too much power, the line unrolls beautifully, or at least decently, and I have the sense of success that I need to keep on going.

At the moment like these I also remember that it is not the destination, it is about the journey.

Snake Roll and other advanced casting techniques

Speycasting is natural way to cast, as my five-year-old son demonstrates:

Three things of importance

An Illuminated Tree

It has been on the river bank for decades. It has been in the sunshine for thousands of days. But for the first time it was illuminated for you.

A Discussion and the Practice of the Underhand Cast

In this cast, leader and fly are used as an anchor to load the fly rod against tension of water. When the timing is perfect, and only then, the fly line will shoot like an arrow from bow. Practice it a hundred times, and each time you do it right (maybe once or twice in first hundred casts), you feel it like you had never really cast before. It is that magical; a pure form of joy.

A Piece of Wood

Once living, now dead. It served its purpose and still does.

Rod Building - Part 13: The stripping guides

From Fly Rod

After little fun with the power tools (must use them at least once a year) the stripping guides are ready to be attached to the blank.

From Fly Rod

This Temple Fork Outfitters blank was supplied with large stripping guides. They will add a bit weight to the rod but will make the shooting of fly line a bit more effective.

Note: I'm waiting for a shipment of single footed guides for this rod to arrive in any day. Should that happen, this rod might actually be finished in time for the May/June streamer fishing.

Casting practice

Following my master plan, I was practicing my casting yesterday. I prefer to do it at the river using actual flies (I think I lost about half dozen streamers).



There were few fishermen at the river--a bit early I’d say, better wait for a while until the fishing is good.



But it was a perfect day for casting practice. I had sunshine, light winds, heavy winds, light snow, heavy snow, and a thermos of cold coffee.



It was a great day, not for mankind but for me.

Shooting head testing continues

It's time to continue shooting head testing. I have made few Shooting heads for my 5 weight rod. There is a short floating line (about 7 meters or 23 feet of DT8F). It is good and easy to cast, but it is bit shorter than I like. So I have cheap DT7F that I try next. I also have fast sinking head made of old WF8 sink tip line and sinking one made of DT6S.

The question is: why to do this with relatively light 5 weight rod?
My answer: Why not? With DT7 head, I can cast streamers really well and my outfit is still light.

Have you made custom shooting heads?

From Shooting Heads

Urban Fly Fishing on the Kelvin: Casting pool

Alistair visited the Glasgow Angling Centre and found a casting pool with water (click here to see this post). I would like to see those in Finland as well.

Testing rods and lines

Now when my favourite fly rod is broken I have tried out my other rods with different lines. To my surprise some strange combinations work to some extent at least.

Maybe the biggest surprise is my old 8 weight rod. This 8'6" rod casts 7 weight DT line very well, but this is natural as you might even call it 7/8 weight rod. However I was able to cast some 20-23 meter casts with this rod using 5 weight Rio WindCutter line. It didn't shoot that well but I was able to keep most of the line in the air before final forward cast. It did require lot of double hauling thou.