Quest Outdoors

whorwood · Eyed Egg Joined: 12 Dec 2004 Posts: 5 Location: Ontario

Hi
Here in the great lakes region we quite often are faces with small bushy streams, tying to overhead cast is impossible in many cases. Also using two-handers can be difficult. I've put together a number of questions, thought it might be fun to see what you guys are using for this method.

Single hand spey casting

Rods:
What type of rod do you uses (length, action)and why?
If given a choice what length would you like?
If you could improve on the rod your using (action) what would you like?

Reels: ?

Leaders:
What type and length leader do you use?
Do you use shot or sink tips?
If you use shot what system do you use (on the leader or drop system)?
D you use an float/indicator?
Do you use any other method for an indicator?

Lines:
Do you use a long belly line?
Do you use a short belly line?
Do you use a mutli tip system?
Do you use a spey type line (W.C. Delta)?

Flies:
Do you use yarn mostly?
Do you use nymphs mostly?
Do you use spey type flies mostly?

Thanks in advance
Rick Whorwood

BrianD · Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 9:25 pm Post subject: Single handed spey casting

Rick,
this topic should turn out to be a good one, as most Great Lakes fly fishing for steelheading involves some sort of roll or spey cast. I'd venture to say that nearly 100% of my steelhead presentations use a spey cast unless I'm fishing from a boat. We simply don't have the back cast room availabe in most systems to fish any other way.

Gear wise, I'm partial to a faster action rod in the 10' + range to help with line pickup, especially when wading a bit deep, and to give me better drift control (I'm generally indicator nymphing). Of the proper single handed spey rods I've used, they've all fallen into 2 categories, wet noodle, or heavy-as-sin! The only thing about the production 1 handers I've liked is the extended butt grip (rather than a std fighting butt). A short rear grip rives me a place to park my line hand when I'm not putting a haul into the cast, which helps to "stabilize" the cast a bit. The exception is when I've waded deep and need a longer cast, where I generally end up putting exagerated full arm movement into the pick-up and sweep to compensate for the short rod length. Ideally, I'd like a rod in the 11' - 11'6" range so wading depth becomes a non-issue.

I'm not sure the reel has any major bearing on casting, but the line plays a major part. I'm partial to longer belly weight forward lines, as they give me the best drift control at longer distances and require much less strip-and-shoot. A disaster when winter steelheading!

The other single handed spey situation I find myself in is streamer fishing for trout on streams that may be wider, but have tree lined banks. In these situations I prefer a standard WF line, slightly overlined, with a poly leader, or I'll just switch to a full sink head if I've got to get deeper. I still settle for a fast action 10' 6wt in these situations, but would prefer about an 11'er. It would definitly be shorter than my steelhead nymphing rod, since I'm strip retrieving most of the time and warmer conditions allow shooting into the cast.