video clips of Mike M spey casting
I apologize to everyone for ranting in this thread but thought I would post one more time and share some video clips of spey casting. Some folks here have stated that while they enjoy spey casting, they prefer fighting fish on a single hander. As short as 5 years ago, I bet the average 2-hander for steelheading was a 14' 8 or 9 wt and it took a considerable fish to make you know you had something worthwhile. But in the last 5 years there have been huge changes and there are more light speys out there and the newer switch rods (not much different than your single hander). What is maybe more important is the development of line systems that allow you to use these lighter rods and still throw heavy flies and sink tips and do it easily!!!
Most recently is the introduction of short skagit lines on light rods and Mike McCune, one of the premiere skagit casters and a developer of theses lines was kind enough yesterday to put on a demonstration at the Watt Bridge.
The typical skagit cast for river left, downstream wind is the snap T (or circle cast) demonstrated here:
URL=http://s15.photobucket.com/albums/a395/RickJ/?action=view¤t=DSCN2743.flv]http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...h_DSCN2743.jpg[/URL]
Another good cast for this situation is the perry poke:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...h_DSCN2740.jpg
With an upstream wind, you want the set on your downstream shoulder - here is a truly easy cast that takes no effort at all -an off-shoulder vertical double spey that I saw for the first time yesterday
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...h_DSCN2738.jpg
And finally and off shoulder perry poke
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...h_DSCN2747.jpg
Look how little effort is being expended with these casts and think of the possibilities - it makes it possible for someone approaching 60 to continue fishing under winter conditions all day for several days and not beat myself up!!
As my good friend Bruce Slightom pointed out, most of these guys doing this started out as single handed steelheaders but none have gone back to the single hander finding it much easier to use the 2-hand rods and they have pushed the limits so that now you can use a light 2-hander and not lose out on the fight of even smaller steelhead!!