If you’re anything like me and you love to steelhead fish, you probably already know it's more than just a hobby. Steelhead fishing is an addiction and a lifestyle. Do you find yourself calling in sick to go fishing? Do you send your rent check in late, because you needed a new pair of waders? Do you find yourself waking up at 4 in the morning, just so you can be the first one to arrive at your favorite steelhead run? Do you obsessively check river levels? If you answered yes to any of these questions, admit it—you're an addict like me.
While there are many ways to fish for these silver-sided acrobats, fishing with a two-hander (more commonly called a spey rod), has become an increasingly popular way to fuel our addiction.
Twelve years ago, a friend of mine bought a spey rod. I thought he was crazy. Why would anyone want to learn to cast that behemoth of a rod. I was content with bouncing nymphs and egg patterns along the bottom. I caught plenty of fish this way and had fun doing so. I was set in my ways, and that was that. I figured I'd let my friend flail away with his new rod, while I caught fish, but a couple of years later, after seeing more and more people on the river using the long rod, I decided to attend a spey gathering to see what this craze was all about.
A spey gathering is where two-handed rod aficionados get together to exchange information, ideas and try new rods and lines. What I witnessed changed the way I viewed spey fishing.
I watched an elderly gentleman make a cast of about 120 feet with no effort whatsoever. He made it look so simple. Not a single false cast or back cast was required. The fly line sliced though the air in a tight loop that seemed to never end, before gently falling to the river below. I was awe struck. I needed to learn this style of casting!
I called my friend and told him I wanted to borrow his spey rod. After a barrage of heckling and unnecessary "I told you so’s," he eventually handed the rod over. I took it down to the river and made one battered cast after another. After thrashing the water and spooking every fish a mile up and down the river, I decided to buy a couple videos and books on spey casting. I put away the nymphs and egg patterns, bought my own spey rod, and totally dedicated myself to learning this method of casting. For the next year, I fished exclusively with my spey rod. It had become a challenging, exciting, and new way to catch these chrome torpedoes in which we spend our lives pursuing. My casts were not perfect, however, a fishable cast doesn't have to be perfect.
Spey casting is essentially an advanced aerial roll cast. It was named after the River Spey in Scotland. The origin of this technique of casting and fishing with two-handed rods dates back to the middle of the 19th century, where salmon anglers in Scotland were faced with the challenge of rivers that were wide, fast, and had trees and brush running all the way down to the rivers edge. These obstacles left no room for backcasts. To face these challenges, anglers used long rods from 15 to 20 feet long, and made of lance, ash, and greenheart woods. They were extremely heavy and wearisome to cast.
The first spey cast developed from a roll cast—and over time, it formed into "true spey" casts. These casts, known as the single spey and the double spey, are still commonly used today. To be a successful angler, one had to cover as much water as possible by swinging the fly at a downstream angle across the river, while keeping the fly in front of the line, as to not startle the fish. With these long two-handed rods, anglers, on a good day, were able to roll their line out 80 to 90 feet.
A gentleman named Alexander Grant, a native of the Spey valley, took the art of spey casting to an extraordinary level. Using a 21 foot rod, he had created out of greenheart wood, he was able to roll cast a mind blowing 65 yards. How about that for some distance casting?
It was about fifteen years ago that the "spey craze" came to the Northwest United States, Canada, and eventually the Great Lakes region. Steelhead anglers began to see the benefits of casting a two-handed rod. Long casts of 80 to 100 feet plus, could be made with relative ease and without any false casting, which in turn, meant the fly spent more time in the water. Anglers no longer had to worry about if they had room to make a back cast. With a longer rod, line control became that much easier. More efficient mends were made and longer drifts could be achieved. These advantages opened up water that was previously only accessible by boat. Fishing with a spey rod in the winter became invaluable. Anglers could set a fixed length of line and not have to strip any in, resulting in less ice build up in the guides, and warmer hands.
Since the invasion of the two-handed rod in North America, rod and line manufacturers have developed newer materials into their designs, which in turn, make spey casting more efficient and effortless. Due to these newer designs, more modern casts have been developed, such as the Snake roll, the Snap-T, the Wombat, and the Perry Poke, just to name a few. Salmon and steelhead anglers are not the only ones bitten by the spey bug. Trout anglers are using shorter and lighter versions of the two-handed rod while fishing with indicators, throwing streamers, and skating dry flies.
Nearly every rod company today makes some kind of spey rod. If you do decide to take up spey casting, talk to your local fly shop and find out what rod is good for you. I urge you not to get caught up in the technical jargon and semantics. Hire a guide and learn the basics. There are many great books and instructional videos also available. Study these and get out on the water.
By learning how to cast the two-handed rod, you will find that you've gained access to waters and fish that were previously impossible to reach.
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