Note: I've created the blog to capture thoughts and material relating to the use of Spey casting, primarily with a two-handed rod, for stillwater fly fishing. The use of [BL] indicates a straight blog entry with no particular relationship to an outline and coherent set of notes on the subject.
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| My Mug with 36" Steelie on the Grande Ronde |
December 9, 2018
Beneficially the local waters have frozen allowing me to stop tweaking my cast as it regressed to the usual set of problems, including whacking the rod, crossing lines, and weak casts, a setback to progress I've made lately, as I'm trying to change too many things all at once.
But I'm excited about underhand casting, something I'd discovered early in my journey to Spey casting but didn't figure it out (videos links to follow). I moved on from it, found Rick Williams as a coach, and went on a different journey. But this week underhand casting returned.
I tried it yesterday at South Fork and the few times my technique my casts were long, line speed high, and the effort minimal. This technique uses leaders 15' long or even longer. I was using a polyleader hacked to 6' and then a 6' piece of 1x tippet., thus only 12' of leader. That configuration isn't what is needed and I have some work to do to find a 15' tapered leader or perhaps a combination of polyleader and tapered leader will work.
I started fiddling with underhand (e.g. Scandinavian) casting again at SF and by the time I left for home my cast was destroyed, though I had made some very good casts. I think an interesting change to what my current technique is to bring the top hand tighter to the body. I'll demonstrate what this means in the video links and notes to follow.
I believe Göran Andersson was the one to integrate the two-handed rod techniques into the Scandinavian underhand style and he was featured in the first video I'd seen of this style. I couldn't make it work when I first found it and went a different path, eventually receiving some good coaching from Rick Williams.
Building on the ideas of Andersson, Henrik Mortensen provides an explanation of the benefits of the mechanics of underhand casting. At 3:50 in his video is a critical discussion of the underhand technique. There is an involved discussion of technique involved with single-handed casting, Pacific NW sustained anchor casting and Scandinavian casting, but I'm uniquely unqualified to talk about the subtleties involved. Generally, with single-handed casting and its shorter rods, a bit more motion in the forearm and perhaps upper arm is involved as compared with two-handed casting. With Pacific NW casting a sort of motion (I think of an ax chop) to get the cast started provides a longer stroke. The underhand technique lengthens the rod tip travel by using more of the lower body. My current view, always subject to change, is that more power will be generated by using the entire body as Henrik Mortenson advocates (see link above).
Building on the ideas of Andersson, Henrik Mortensen provides an explanation of the benefits of the mechanics of underhand casting. At 3:50 in his video is a critical discussion of the underhand technique. There is an involved discussion of technique involved with single-handed casting, Pacific NW sustained anchor casting and Scandinavian casting, but I'm uniquely unqualified to talk about the subtleties involved. Generally, with single-handed casting and its shorter rods, a bit more motion in the forearm and perhaps upper arm is involved as compared with two-handed casting. With Pacific NW casting a sort of motion (I think of an ax chop) to get the cast started provides a longer stroke. The underhand technique lengthens the rod tip travel by using more of the lower body. My current view, always subject to change, is that more power will be generated by using the entire body as Henrik Mortenson advocates (see link above).
OK. So how did I get back to all this? I stumbled over another video looking at Trout Spey casting in the last few days. The one thing that is consistent everywhere I look is compact and slow. Compact and slow. As anyone using a Spey rod for a time likely discovers, the moment frustration begins we start to hurry, which messes up the cast.I loved a conversation I had with Bob Meiser a couple of days ago when we talked about slow and compact. He told me he carried a flask with bourbon while fishing. When he found his technique falling apart he would sit on the bank, take a sip of bourbon, and remind himself to slow down. Rick Williams and I swapped email on this about a month ago -- not the bourbon but slow down and keep the hands in the box.
Drum roll, please ... here is a video of Klaus Flimor expanding the ideas of Scandinavian casting and providing more possibilities for this cast. I'm sure I'll never make it to this skill level, but some of Klaus Flimor's ideas should find a place in my casting repertoire. Watch the cast Klaus makes at 12:45 and notice the position of the top hand -- almost touching his shoulder. I tried this a few times yesterday and when I had the right form the power was incredible. Just incredible. This is my new direction but I'm glad to have a few days off to digest and consolidate the data.
Also, notice his compact stroke in this video, which I believe is very beneficial with a longer rod as there are fewer motions to mess up rod tip travel. I had completely forgotten this until digging out this video but I'm sure I used this stroke a few times yesterday and it felt goofy. I can't be sure as I have no video and also, I had completely forgotten his stroke until I started working at this paragraph. On some casts, I was trying to keep my top hand tight to my shoulder (as seen in Frimor's video see link below) and it gave me a strong sense of being very crowded, moving very little, and shooting the line out. I think I rediscovered this style of casting and was using it without knowing I was returning to something that interested me earlier.
