Have you tried single handed Spey casting / fishing?

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

For Single handed Spey the Wulff Ambush line is very popular with some Versi/Poly leaders.

http://royalwulff.com/products/ambush-fly-line/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROWYZPaiNd4


I am sure some of the other lines will work as well.


I would talk with Jeff Putnam about getting the right line for single handed Spey casting for your fly rod.

Our most popular video has been Jeff's "Single-Handed Fly Rod Casting Using Spey Casting Techniques".

Jeff really likes the RIO Grand, two sizes heavier than the rod for single handed Spey casting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsPg45iNd_U


*I would love to try this on the Trinity River in Oct/Nov for swinging wet flies for Steelhead.

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[Dan LeCount]

Spey techniques cross over to single handers very well. Especially variations on the snap-t with nymphing.

[beachbum2]

Dan...I believe by are absolutely bright. Fished the Yuba recently and started nymph fishing. Oncenthe drift was complete there was an awful lot of work in getting by the fly back into position.....with no fly on the water and not fishing. Whereas at the end of that drift, execute a snap-t and back out on the water you go.
The more in watch and learn...spey casting techniques are fabulous w a single-handed rod.

QUOTE=Dan LeCount;155609]Spey techniques cross over to single handers very well. Especially variations on the snap-t with nymphing.[/QUOTE]

[Bill Markwood]

Simon Gawesworth has a great book on single handed spey casting. If you've ever seen him at the Pleasenton show, you know he is a great teacher and he transfers that into the written word as well. I highly recommend the book to anyone who is interested in single handed spey casting.

[troutless]

Learning single-handed spey casting will greatly expand the scope of situations you can fish with a single-hander. Simon's book already mentioned is great. One nit -- it contains many useful insights about speycasting in general, not just single handed!

Some other great lines for speycasting single-handers:

Airflo 40+ and all the other Airflo Delta tapers in single-hand config.
Rio Steelhead/Atlantic Salmon
double-handed scandi heads downsized 2-3 line weights e.g. a 4/5 on a 7-wt single-hander

[Larry S]

Luv the Ambush lines. Believe I have 3 of them. A roll cast is the obvious advantage. The heavy head allows you to throw
some BIG flies.
Jeff's videos are among the very best. What a great teacher.
Best,
Larry S

[MickeyFinn]

Some other lines what work like integrated shooting heads are the Loop Evotec 85 which has a 28' foot head and the Leland's new lines which have a 22' head in the New Zealand series. I found that the initial anchor doesn't matter much but taking that line, removing the slack with a sweep of the rod tip and then accelerating to a stop towards your target can open up many new casts to have in your arsenal. Too often we focus on the "roll" in a roll cast which does get the line out there but like Jeff says in his video. You treat the forward motion just like a regular cast as the rod is loaded by the waters surface tension. If you stop the tip higher say parallel to the water your line will go out in the air opposed to rolling out on the waters surface.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROWYZPaiNd4

I found this video a few years ago and it really shows the advantages of single handed Spey casting.

The prefect place would be the upper part of the Trinity's Steelhead water where it is narrow and brushy.

Swinging Steelhead flies, working steamers, swinging soft hackles or fishing caddis emergers is what I think about for this casting.



Jeff Putnam said he was working on another Single handed Spey casting / fishing video and that
Rio has some new Single Handed Spey line they are working on for the fall.

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[tcorfey]

This video is pretty cool 6wt rod with a short Skagit head. Gentlemen makes it look so easy…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IhQrfkaR5g

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Thanks tcorfey,

That is a fantastic video showing the benefits of the single handed Spey techniques.

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[Rmacneil656]

I installed a Switch rod handle on my 9ft 5wt, I cut down a line to make my own custom grain Skagit head. 13ft Skagit, 10 foot of type 3, a cone head Zonker does 50 ft casts with 5 feet of back cast room. Great for throwing streamers for Trout. You can check out my rod build in another post, that includes details on what line I cut, etc. I'm also going to post my casting video on there.

Even without the switch handle I can single hand Spey cast this setup quite easily, the advantage is the ability to haul as you cast ( similar to a double haul) to speed up the line, but I find the biggest disadvantage is without a second handle is lifting, its harder to lift and and preform the snap of the snap T, that second handle just lets you really "flick" the line to get a nice layout before starting your peel.