Stripers Kick Ass

[Mark Kranhold]

The swing life involves looking cool and never catching fish, but sometimes you do and you can feel more accomplished than everyone else. then you go back to not catching anything for a few months

I didn’t realize standing in the river watching your fly swing across current waiting in anticipation for a tug looked so cool? I’ll have to check it out sometime.

[Lucas Dement]

Its more you get bored and see what fancy casts you can do

[Mark Kranhold]

John, sorry for the post hacking this usually happens on the steelhead page. By the way great striper and post, always enjoy reading your posts! Lucas it sounds like you may have a case of nymphintigo, a rare narrow minded disease of the thought process and understanding fundamentals. I'll give you a brief description behind what you call “fancy casts”. It’s all about efficiency. The change of wind, upstream wind vs. downstream wind could change ones cast from a double spey to an off shoulder cast or snap T depending if you are river left or river right. That far seam on the other side of the river may cause one to cast square or even upstream a bit and then throw a big upstream mend in it and hold that rod up high and let it hang in that seam before swinging through the rest of the run. A snake roll or single spey cast is the most efficient cast to get your fly back in the water faster, the longer your flys soaking the greater chance for a grab. Hopefully you understand the basics of using a spey rod now?

[John H]

Mark - All good. My swinging strategy is to get it way out there, sink it as much as possible and try to ignore how cold my feet are. It also seems like knowing the runs and beating the other dudes to the good ones is an important part of the strategy.