Tracy&James | Wednesday, 19 February 2025
I like to think that I could pick up pretty much any single handed fly outfit and produce nice loops within a cast or two. The outfits I routinely use for fishing and casting tournaments range from a soft #3, that I use for dry fly fishing on rivers, through to the monstrous T38 outfit that I wouldn't dream about fishing with, but I have cast over 200ft (60+m) many times in practice. I should say that I have actually fished with a T38 line – I used it in a very deep 'blue hole' to try and get down to some goliath grouper that I was told might be lurking (this was unfortunately unsuccessful). I've also cast 'broomsticks' i.e. non-bending rods, in fact I distinctly remember when I was first handed one by Mark Surtees – I asked him “what line should I put on it” to which he replied “it doesn't matter, it's not going to bend with any of them”. Anyway with this non-bending rod it's possible to produce gorgeous chisel-shaped loops with the straightest rod-leg that you'll ever see. In contrast to this I've cast a 'Vince special', a rod so soft and slow that I suspect it's still counter-flexing now after the abuse meted out to it one particular weekend. So it's fair to say that my single handed skills are robust enough to cope with pretty much anything, the same cannot be said for my double handed Spey casting.
As mentioned in previous FPs, I've decided to try and learn competition (double handed) Spey casting. I should say that I'm a pretty good single handed Spey caster, using them all the time when on the river with my #3 weight outfit mentioned above, but that's a long way from a stiff 15 footer with a 75ft shooting head. I've no intention of ever going salmon fishing (tropical saltwater is always going to win out when it comes to paying for trips as far as I'm concerned), however I now have bought a Spey rod purely with the intention of entering competitions. I should point out that I have another 15ft double hander for the S55 overhead casting event, this is a bit too 'delicate' for moving a tournament shooting head about though (or I think it is).
Being as the typical Spey casting competition is a combined left hand up plus right hand up scoring system, I've decided to learn a cack-handed single Spey first. I figure that if I can learn to do it from the off left handed then transferring what I learnt to my right should be relatively easy (I should point out that I've never really spent any time learning single handed Speys using my left hand – off the shoulder, yes, cack-handed – no). Whether this is a sensible approach I don't know, in fact I'm not sure whether going straight in with tournament gear, skipping the usual 'easy', short-head technique building stage, is madness or just a short-cut to where I want to be. Anyway, since the winter set in, I'd say that 95% of all the casts I've performed have been left hand up Speys (a mix of snake roll layouts and single Spey deliveries). Today I did two hours plus in the crystal clear sea up in Scotland where Tracy and I are currently staying (she's working, I'm casting!).
What is absolutely clear to me is that my double-handed Spey casting has virtually no 'robustness' built into it yet. Hand me another outfit, such as the one that Tracy is learning with, and my technique falls apart – wrapping the line around the back of my head or horribly tailing the delivery would be the norm. Even a seemingly inconsequential change such as using a different stiffness of final section on my rod can throw me completely. Whether this is psychological or something else, I don't know, but hopefully it will improve with my experience.
Tomorrow (today as you read this) I'll be putting another couple of hours into cack-handedly slinging a fly line into Loch Long. When we're back in Wales I'll have to break out the single handed rods for the first time this year in order to do some preparation for an upcoming competition in Spain.
Hope you're having a great week,
James