Alternate Casting Methods

Perhaps I am being presumtuous in saying most fishermen in the areas I fish use what I consider more conventional casting techniques. By this I mean the classic over head cast and typical roll and mend techniques. Toss (pun) in an occasional side arm curve or tower and you pretty much have everything covered. Also some related nymphing techniques like chuck and duck and indy fishing.

I know there is an increasing number of spey casters and that is something I am planning on learning - someday. But I have noticed that there are many casters in places like Europe and New Zealand, that use techniques similar to spey casting but with conventional rods. They seem to claim great distances. Their casting techniques are quite dissimilar to what I am used to. Back casts that drop the rod well below horizontal (yep, you read correctly) and even dip the line into the water behind the caster. Casting strokes that are more similar to competition distance casters in this country. Names like snakeroll and T-cast seem to pop in.

Am I missing something here? Is anyone familiar to these techniques and are they being commonly used in this country - say on salt - or on those big western steel head rivers? Maybe on lakes. Am I living in a vacuum? Well, maybe thats too general and personal - but it seems that I should have heard of this somewhere along the way.

Bob Bolton

There seems to be a growing number of spey casters in Michigan.
Check this out and see if you recognize the streams:
http://www.questoutdoors.net/skills/spey/video/

Down here in the Smokies spey techniques are used quite a bit on even the dinkiest of streams where roll casting is the norm.
These techniques allow one to change direction at will when roll casting without crossing over your line and ending up with a tangled mess.
Simon Gawesworth shows single-handed spey techniques in his videos and books.

Way cool Jackster,

So, where in Michigan - Detroit area- can I get single handed spey lessons. Anybody got a recommendation? I always like learning new stuff.

Bob Bolton

Other casting 'methods' that you don't often see are those that were used by Lee Wulff. I don't mean this as an advertisement for the dvd or video, but you might want to look at 'I Was Born To Fish - Lee Wulff, Fishing The Beaverkill'. In it he discusses casting, tying (ties 5 flies sans vise including a 28 grizzly midge) and several other aspects of fly fishing.

Deezel