{P2} Spey Cast from Boat

Articles and books are written about the Spey Cast but little is written about these casts from a boat.  Their focus is standing near a bank and casting into the river, which is the primary use of the Spey cast and system of gear.

Update (12/06/2019):  There are two interesting effects related to this boat technique.  First, my single-handed casting is improving as my two-handed casting improves.  Klaus Frimor's video teaches that the top hand motion is the same for a two-handed or single-handed cast.  My experience supports his assessment, but he also notes it takes a while before a caster realizes it.  Second, when I move from a period of intense casting boat or bank and go to the other one it does take me a little while to get into the correct groove.  For example, I fished out of my boat for a few weeks and then started bank fishing in fall.  For a half-hour or so all of my Spey casts were to the left of where I was aiming.  It requires some attention to squaring up to that target line to stop casting across my body.  

Scenario: Fish the edge of a lake or reservoir from a float tube.  The angler travels parallel to the shore and casts back to the shore (Figure 1).

Figure 1.  Traveling Parallel to Shore

Description:  As we travel along, we cast back towards the shore.  As a result of our motion, the indicator will fall behind the boat.  The mending will pull it from shore until we have moved along for a distance and the indicator is quartering behind the boat (Figure 2).

Figure 2.  Moved Down the Shore

As we can see the indicator is now behind the boat and it is time to make a cast to reposition the fly and indicator.   We might stop our travel, turn the boat, square up, and make a more or less traditional Spey Cast.  That is certainly an option, but it takes some time to maneuver the boat, cast, and maneuver the boat back to the orientation for traveling.  

Modified Spey Cast:  This cast is unusual in two ways from the normal Snap-T (or Circle-C), the anchor set and the firing position.  

At the start of the cast, the rod is pointed at the indicator and all of the slack is taken out of the system (Figure 3).

Figure 3.  Cast Starting Position

The elements of the cast are the same as other Spey casts: lift, anchor set, sweep, and fire.  Because we aren't standing near a bank and being square to the target consumes too much time modifications to the standard cast are required.  We start (Figure 4) with the lift and when the line starts to move the rod tip circles under the line, and then we lengthen the travel of the tip to the start position for the sweep.  Notice the line has a bit of an arc to it. 

Figure 4.  Tip Motion for the Anchor Set

 The proper position at the finish of the anchor set is shown in Figure 5.  

Figure 5.  Position at End of Anchor Set

If the wind is coming from the back of the boat the tip motion and anchor set are reversed,   I am a right-handed caster and I will cack hand this cast.  

What about Squaring up?  I've learned the shoulders do not need to be square to make this cast.  However, the D-Loop must be aligned with the direction of the cast.  The rod must be in the proper firing plain.  Your hands must operate square to the casting direction, somewhat across your body.  It takes some practice for your muscle memory to make this work.  Once this motion is learned it needs to be unlearned for working a river but that's not a subjet of this series.  

  

Introduction

I was flattered when a couple of friends suggested I write a book about Spey fishing.  The world has plenty of books on the topic and an uncountable number of people who know more about fly fishing and Spey casting than do I.  It raises the question of what I could contribute to the field if I wrote a book.  It would have to be something few people are writing about for otherwise, there is no contribution I could make.

My recent interest is using a Trout Spey, which are light and short rods, suitable for the trout found in the reservoirs in the NE corner of Nevada where I live.  My fly-fishing specialty, though not so much as Brian Chan, Phile Rowley, or Denny Rickards is fishing stillwater for trout.  The picture above is an 18" trout caught at South Fork Reservoir near Elko Nevada with a Trout Spey.

Trout Spey rods are gaining in popularity but not in common use; stillwater trout fishing is a mystery to many anglers.  Put the two together and it is a space that is not occupied by many anglers.  Therefore, it seems worthwhile to capture my experiences and lessons in a blog on the subject of stillwater fly fishing with trout Spey rods.  The subject of the blog is a bit narrow as I will be talking about using Spey techniques with a one-handed rod but that's OK as the main focus will the trout Spey rod.

Being no expert in the prime subjects of casting and stillwater fishing, the target audience will be

• beginning fishers whose primary opportunities will be ponds, lakes and reservoirs 
• intermediate anglers who want to learn to fish stillwater with two-handed rods
• anglers who want to use a two-handed rod in a stillwater scenario for Spey-casting practice
• anglers who want to have fun with a two-handed rod

What will we cover?
Basic Gear:  Waders, boots, sunglasses, boats, hat, nets, tools, nets, rods, reels and lines
Spey Confusion:  For traditional trout fishers the language of Spey casting, lines, rods, and casting styles are a mystery.
Bugs:  Some ideas about the bugs in stillwater
Stillwater Rhythm:  Talks about seasons, their effect on the water, and the trout's response to it.
Casting:  A key success factor for fly fishing
Finding Trout:
Fishing Techniques:
etc:

How will I do this?  It will be a combination of writing about my learning experiences, my fishing experiences, or the things I find in articles, magazines, other blogs, or in video form.  The goal here is not to reinvent what others know but rather to package what is known into an expanded tutorial for fly fishing stillwater with Spey techniques and two-handed rods.

Credits:
As I neared retirement, I began thinking of what to do with the time, which turned out to solve itself.  In any case, I met Joe Doucette, owner of Elko Fly Shop, at an event in town.  He taught me to tie flies, helped me to select good gear, taught me to use it, and took a picture of one happy angler with his first trout on a fly rod.
Bob Thibault and Joe Gates, are local volunteers who help Joe with his classes, who greatly accelerated my learning curves.
Many guides helped me to improve my skills and freely gave me their knowlege of a lifetime on the water.  Julie Meisner, in particular, helped me catch my first steelhead on a Spey rod, a thrill almost as great as my first trout on a fly rod.  When I was struggling with my casting, she introduced me to one great casting teacher.
Rick Williams, on Julie's recommendation, took me as a student and gave me a firm foundation on which to build my two-handed skills.
Chris Gerono, a wild-man guide, showed me a ton of tricks and helped me to become more fishy.
Thanks to all the Ruby Mountain Fly Fishers who have helped me along this journey.

{BL} A System for Managing My Line Zoo

Note:  I will take a few pictures of this arrangement when I have a few minutes.

UPDATE:  November 17, 2019, the scheme I discuss below worked to a point.  It didn't work because I needed a more direct correlation between rods, reels, and lines.  Thus, I have used Excel to create a trivial database for keeping track of my lines.  It has two main tables, one with my rods and one with my lines.  I then create one table with the lines, which matches each rod.
Figure 1 is the table for my Meiser 9' 9" 3/4 wt Trout Spey.   Three lines are used with this rod.  The line numbers (1, 20, & 22) are used to pick lines out of the line table.  The other columns are the information about the line.  The notes column tells me which spool holds that line.  I use a Sharpie to mark the spool, allowing me to find it.
As I mention in the body, I have little plastic tubs holding the reels and spools.  These are marked by Trout Spey, Switch, and Spey categories.  When I plan a trip, I determine the rod appropriate for the fish and then pick a line suitable for the fishing scenario.

Figure 1. Meiser Trout Spey Lines Table

My goodness ... being a gadget freak I've created a virtual zoo of lines to manage.

When I started fly fishing, it was pretty easy to manage my lines.  I had a 3-wt, 5-wt, and 7-wt rod with 1-3 lines for each.  Each one had differently sized reels and associated spools, allowing me to look in my kit bag and see whether a line was for the 4, 5 or 7-wt rod.  The floating and sinking lines were colored differently, making it simple to see what was what.

When I moved to Spey rods, everything changed.  Each line is characterized by a grain weight and head length -- two numbers instead of one.  The bad news is the new lines are difficult to tell apart.  The good news is most are marked but some are not.  Rather than spool them, as with single handed rods, these come with running lines, heads, and as appropriate tips, all connected by loop-to-loop connections.  It isn't too difficult to manage this system.  The heads go in a tip wallet; the tips go in a tip wallet, and the reels have running lines with loops.  I only needed to select a reel of the right size for the rod, pick the type of line in the right grain weight from the wallet, and pick a tip as needed.  Connect it up with the loop-to-loop connections and the system is done.  If a line wasn't marked then I use a simple system for marking the line.

At the leader end of the line, I marked the grain weight and head length with bands on the line.  For example, to mark a 450 grain 44' head, I would put 4 bands on the line, a space, and 5 bands on the line.  Multiply the 45 by 10 and get 450 grains.  For things like 465 grains, I round it up and mark a 47 on the tip.  Then I leave a larger gap and mark the head length in the same way.  Because it was so simple, I mark all of my Spey lines in this way to make it easier to know what it is.

With Trout Spey rids I use all integrated lines, meaning none of the heads go into a wallet.  Rather the various lines I use for my trout Spey rod are put onto spools and I swap the spools.  This created some additional complexity as none of the heads are stored in a head wallet but rather changes are made by changing spools.  Now I might have a couple of reels (I always have a spare cage) and 4-7 spools.  Now I need to keep track of which spools go with which rod.  Even though the line is integrated, I still mark the head length and grain weight on it.

Then I buy the small plastic containers and write which rod the reel cages and spools store it supports.  This way I choose the rod for the fishing scenario and then grab the plastic container for that rod and then pick the spool that has the line for the fishing scenario.  As with single handed rods, it is easy to tell whether a head is a floating or sinking one.  This has made it easy to figure out what I have that goes with a particular rod.

It works so well that I have a plastic tub for my single-handed reels and for the running line reels.  The system works pretty well.  Pick the rod I intend to use, get the appropriate plastic tub, and then pick a reel cage and spool for the fishing scenario.

[P2] A Recipe for a Consistent Trout Spey Cast

Learning a Spey cast is a journey, as anglers try to improve their cast.  After gaining proficiency at the elements of the cast it is time to begin the process of improving the cast, which will require some attention to detail.  In this blog entry, I describe my journey to consistency and my own personal approach to improving consistency.  I do this to provide other anglers with motivation and ideas for how to make their casting more consistent.

Rick Williams, my casting coach, noted that my line wasn't laying out straight, which was something I had noticed but didn't worry about.  Rick explained it meant my rod tip wasn't traveling a straight path.  I wasn't sure why that was nor how it might be fixed, but I began to notice it.

On a fishing trip to the Salmon River near Stanley, ID, a beautiful place to fish, my buddy Joe took a video of my cast.  In the video, you can see I indicate the cast hooked to the left.  The cause is my hands are too far outside my body and then pulled back into my body during the cast.  This results in an odd casting plane and a rod tip that doesn't track straight.  The odd plane causes a loss of power, but my hands were working well enough I had plenty of power for this cast.  My bottom hand is pulling to the left faster than my top hand, causing the rod tip to travel to the right compared with the direction of the line, resulting in a hook.

Before I started using a trout Spey, there were only a few days a year to work on the kinks, which was not enough time.  After I started using a trout Spey, I was fishing with it several times a week, providing plenty of time to fix my cast.  Now, how do I use that time to make my cast consistent.

I began with trying to straighten out my cast.  If I didn't set up consistently every time then it seemed reasonable that my cast would not be consistent.  Here is how I tackled it.  I was fishing Pyramid Lake on a bluebird day -- no clouds, not a scintilla of breeze, clear water, and lockjaw Lahanton Cutthroat Trout.  Boring.  

The rest of the narrative will be talking from the point of view of casts with the right hand in the top position on the grip.  If I was going to check my cast for straight then it made sense to be certain of the target line.  To be consistent, I decided to explicitly point my right foot at a target on the far bank. I put my left foot a few inches behind that to lock my hips and eliminate rotation.  Now my body and brain know exactly where I am aiming.

After I made the cast, I lined up the butt of the rod with my right foot so that the tip of my rod was pointed at the intended target.  The cast actually went about 20 degrees left of my target line.  Hmmm.  That surprised me.  I tried it again and the same result.  My hands were still coming from the outside and across my body.  This meant my alignment would be poor, my D-loop would not have time to form well, and I was losing power as my fire direction was different than the direction of the loop energy.  OK then.  I had something to work on.

After a couple of hours of working at the consistency of my alignment, my cast began to straighten out.  More remarkably, my loop tightened up, my line speed increased, and I had more distance.  Just like that my casting outcome was much better because my alignment was better.  

Over the next few weeks, I made a number of small changes and my casting continued to improve.  I'll not go through all of those details but rather will describe my current process for cast consistency.

*  Do not hurry.  Many Spey casting problems are caused by going too fast.  All the good casters I've spoken with deliberately slow down when they are starting to struggle.  

*  Consistent Stance: Right foot point at the target to make sure the brain and body are in harmony.  Move left foot slightly behind to prevent turning.  

*  Keeping the hands in the box.  Some wag once said Ed Ward could cast in a phone booth.  This is key to consistency as the more precise the motions, the easier it is to keep them consistent.  I'll discuss anchor set consistency shortly but now the challenge is to sweep consistently while keeping my hands in the box.  At the end of the sweep, my hands need to be in a good firing position -- there are several videos and books to help and a few recommendations can be found here.  Breaking this down into parts:

1. Make sure the rod tip is on the water after the anchor set every single time.  Not on the water one time and a foot above the water next time.  Every single time it is on the water at the end of the anchor set.
2. The top hand should grip the rod handle lightly if at all and the bottom hand should be holding the knob.  As a reminder, this is my checklist and yours may be different.  The rod must be held lightly to allow the hands and rod to work together to make a good cast.  
3. The hands are crossed at the end of the anchor set.  Tom Larimer has a different set of ideas worthy of consideration.  I'll describe my approach but be aware that Larimer has some ideas for fixing the problem of a blown anchor that can hound a caster using these shorter lines.  Whatever your approach make sure to be in the position consistently every time.
4. I focus on starting my sweep with my right hand, the left-hand remains in place until the rod passes the middle of my body.  This is a marker for me.  As my right-hand aligns with my foot -- the point at which my rod has passed my target line -- my left-hand motion of push out and help with the rod tip path begins.  
5. My elbow stays tight to my body but I lift it up as needed for the casting demands.  My elbow does not fly away from my body.  
6. At this point, my left-hand and right-hand are moving smoothly into the firing position.  My left hand will be in the middle of the body and right hand is in the phone booth close to my shoulder.
7. If everything has gone well, an easy pull with the bottom hand will shoot line out at a remarkable speed.  It takes a while to get used to this much line speed with so little effort by the bottom hand.  

*Check the outcome.  Were there problems with the cast?  Was it noisy?  Did you blow the anchor?  Was it straight?  Was it low energy?  If there were problems, try to understand what went wrong and work correction into your casting routine.

Videos of your cast will help diagnose and correct faults.  Part of the self-diagnosis is to learn the common problems and their causes in order to find your markers to make consistent casts.  As your consistency increases, your results improve and you will be able to recover from a casting funk more quickly.

I hope this helps.  Good luck out there.  

[P2] Two-Handed Casting for Stillwater

The Agony and The Ecstasy would be a good title for a Spey Casting movie, as an aspiring Spey Caster must overcome the mechanical challenges of making a cast and the configuration challenges of matching the line to the rod's capability, all in the context of some fishing scenario.  Some of these issues were discussed in a pair of blogs posted here and here.  It can be frustrating putting that first Spey system together and sometimes even the shops get it wrong.  It can also be frustrating to put a cast together because of all the parts and their interdependence.  But when it all comes together and you launch that cast straight, true, and fast to the target the ecstasy is unbelievable, making the agony of learning it worthwhile.

I'll also note that a coach can be of great assistance to help you get started.   Clubs, local fly shops, Spey Claves are all possibilities for finding help to get going.

A 22" Toad picked off with my 3-wt Meiser Trout Spey

There are innumerable resources (books and videos among them) to help an angler learn the art of Spey casting.  The people making them know much more than I do about Spey casting and if I made another one (ignoring the fact I'm not capable) it would not add to the discussion in a significant way. Rather than that, I'll identify resources that helped me and explain what lessons I took from them in my journey to become a better Spey caster.  

For experienced single-handed casters, learning to apply power with the bottom hand rather than the top hand is one of the greatest challenges.  This short video of my buddy illustrates the problem of pushing with the top hand -- when I took the video, my buddy thought his bottom hand was applying this power.

   

Needs More Bottom Hand Power

On stillwater, especially for beginners to two-handed casting, the Skagit Cast is a good starting place, which is what will be covered in this post.

The four parts of the Skagit Cast are the lift, anchor set, sweep, and fire, which are performed smoothly one after another.  If some of these terms are strange, one of my blogs explains the terminology of Spey casting.

• Lift:  Breaks the tension of the line on the water and raises sink tips and heavy flies, as needed, to prepare for the anchor set.
• Anchor Set:  The anchor must be set a rod length from the caster at an angle from 30 to 60 degrees depending upon the target line of the cast.  
• Sweep:  This motion loads the rod and makes a large D-loop to load the road for the cast.
• Fire:  This motion is a small pull with the bottom hand to load the road and launch the fly.  All Spey casts get to the same firing position.  

As we are talking about a trout Spey, we will let Joe Rotter provide a demonstration for us.  His web content (videos and blogs) provide useful information.  Joe doesn't talk about the lift but it is clear in his video.  His key piece of advice is slow down, which is a critical success factor for Spey casting.  Slowing down may be more important than applying power with the bottom hand for being a successful two-handed caster.

Dec Hogan explains the lift motion and tells us why it is important.  Moving water will make this different than the lift is on still water as the water current moving away provides an assist for the lift, which will not be the case in still water.  In a future blog, this will be discussed in more detail.

Simon Gawesworth demonstrates a Snap-T anchor set.  There is much to say about this and in this short blog, we won't be able to cover it.  In another section about consistency, we will come back to it. For now, notice the anchor is set about a one-rod length away from the caster and an angle of about 45 degrees to the intended target line.  For stillwater, I've modified this anchor set.  In moving water the cast changes the direction of the fly from Simon's left shoulder to in front of him.  In stillwater we often cast right back in the same direction.  This difference changes the anchor set motion, which will be covered in another blog.

Bob Gillespie provides some of the best advice you will ever see when he discusses the climbing curve on the sweep.  In a future blog, I will discuss consistency in more detail but for now, it is important to always start with the rod tip on the water and then gradually lift the tip (e.g. climbing curve) until the tip is in the firing position.
The sweep is executed in one plane and the fire in another plane as Ed Ward explains in the first minute of his video, which is a handy way to look at it.  The entirety of this video is a good explanation of the Skagit cast versus other forms of casting.

Simon Gawesworth (again) explains the firing position starting at about 830 in this video.  Critical in the firing position is to get the bottom hand away from your body so it has room to pull the butt of the rod for the cast.  If it is too close to the body then the caster is forced to push the rod away, and the result will be a high effort for a weak cast.

Useful References:
Jon Hazlett from Ashland Fly Shop (Youtube Videos)
Joe Rotter from Red's Fly Shop (Youtube Videos)
Tom Larimer (Youtube Videos)
Spey Casting by Simon Gawesworth does a great job of describing the dynamic activity of Spey Casting in book format.  Particularly valuable are his tips for troubleshooting problems with your casting.  

Two-Handed Spey Casting Techniques by Al Buhr another useful book reference for a Spey caster's library.  It is pricey but can be found used at a more reasonable price.

[P1] Why Use a Trout Spey on Stillwater

"Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after."
- Henry David Thoreau

By nature, people are curious and problem solvers.  Fly fishing provides us with the opportunity to satisfy our curiosity and to solve problems, which is a reason I was drawn to it.  My curiosity led me to a degree in math and physics, which then led me into aerospace where designing things that had never been built before was a way of life.  Then I retired.  What to do with the curiosity and engineering skills I have developed?  Fly fishing was my choice.  I think to one degree or another this describes all fly fishers -- they are curious about their quarry and they enjoy the challenge of catching that quarry with a fly rod.  

Two Ruby Mountain Fly Fishers at Pyramid Lake's Pelican Rock

As an example, I was fishing in Pyramid Lake when a character next to me was catching nearly all the fish.  As I often quip, the best place to fish Pyramid Lake is on either side of me but this was ridiculous.  He was using a typical Pyramid Lake rig -- sinking line, weighted leech on the bottom, and a Pyramid Lake Beetle on a 9" stinger about 18" above the beech.  I was tossing a balanced leech about 8' under an indicator with my 6-wt switch rod.   

My first thought was how can I duplicate that fishing technique with a small Spey.  Well, it is not so easy.  To be honest, I don't have a solution as I write this, but when I work it out there will be a blog entry.  I do know that all the knots common to swinging flies with two-handed rods, for which the gear was designed, does not work well on lakes.  We need something different.  The integrated lines that could work are designed for a single-handed rod and thus don't have the tapers necessary for Spey casting.  So it goes.  What this all provides for me is an opportunity to scratch my creative/engineering urges by finding a suitable solution to this problem.  

For those who might not know, Pyramid Lake is home to trophy-sized Lahontan Cutthroat and in fact is the only place you can catch these magnificent fish that weigh over 20 pounds.  Pyramid Lake, located in the northwest corner of Nevada about 40 miles north of Reno, has a sand and gravel bottom with few snags.  Creative people have invented an entire ecosystem of techniques, flies, and even ladders with chairs on them for fishing this unique lake, illustrating the point.

Spey techniques, which can be used with either single-handed or two-handed rods, can provide the angler with more tools to tackle the various fishing situations we encounter.  Pyramid Lake is one.  Small reservoirs and ponds, with trophy-sized trout, are another. 

I may have buried my lead but that's OK.  Spey casting provides useful capabilities for stillwater situations.  Anglers who use them will be more successful.

• Spey casting keeps everything in front of the angler.  Commonly this is expressed as being able to cast with obstructions behind the angler.  This is true but they may not always be things on a bank.  In smaller ponds when fishing with other anglers, one must check behind them before casting in the traditional way to avoid hooking somebody, which interferes with the joy of fishing.  With a Spey cast, no worries, as all is in front of the angler.  No worries except for somebody else hooking you.  

Two Ruby Mountain Fly Fishers in Small Reservoir

• Change of direction.  Spey casts were designed to swing flies in a river.  With this technique, one casts between 45 and 90 degrees to the bank and then lets the fly drift in the current back to the bank.  Once the fly is at the bank (on the dangle in the jargon) the next cast is made back out into the river.  But changing direction can be useful for the fly fisher in Stillwater.  I was fishing in Wildhorse one spring.  I was using a single-handed rod but I can execute Spey casts with it.  I was fishing a leech under an indicator when a big guy porpoising along caught my eye.  It was off moving along to the right side of my little pontoon boat.  I made a single motion Spey cast to change my direction and put the leech out in front of that fish and began to strip it.  Fortune smiled on me as that bad boy came and got it.  Without the Spey cast, I probably would not have caught that fish.  
• Length.  As I mentioned in the Curses of the Long Cast, casting long can be a curse of Spey casting.  But it is nice to have the distance when you see a trout rising a ways from your boat.  If that distance isn't available, then the fish may move on before you have your boat maneuvered to a place to make the cast.  
• Practice.  The closest salmon/steelhead swinging water for me is a five-hour drive.  Using a trout Spey for fishing my local waters gives me a way to maintain and improve my two-handed casting skills, keeping me ready for that trip to a big river. 
• Fun.  Ed Ward, one of the Skagit masters, talks about fishing goals.  First, you want to catch fish; then you want to catch lots of fish; then you want to catch bit fish; then you want to catch lots of big fish.  After this journey, Ed discovered it wasn't catching the fish he was after.  He now says he wants to be out fishing, as long as it is with a two-handed rod.  That is the deal that makes the challenge of mastering a two-handed rod worthwhile.