I fished the Madison and Firehole in Yellowstone Park last week and was surprised by the number of fishermen and women using Spey/Switch rods. I saw a video on YouTube that demonstrated three types of casting techniques, Traditional, Skagit and one that uses a weight forward shooting line cast. Are any of you familiar with Spey casting and what specific equipment is needed to use that fishing technique?
I did get a nice rainbow just inside the park using an egg pattern.
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Can't help with the Spey info. But nice Bow !
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Beautiful trout. Not too many Spey casters here. Mischievous and Chrome Junky do use it a lot. I would be more into the two handed if I fished bigger rivers for sure.
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I did it a couple months ago for steelhead in Oregon. Two-hander. I could throw a streamer clear across the river, a country mile, with little effort, but other than that, I . . . well . . . lets just say I won't become a spey fisherman. To me, it was glorified, long-distance roll casting. Just not why I fly fish. If I lived around huge rivers and really needed to, then maybe, sometimes. Can't see the need for it on any rocky mountain rivers.
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I just got back from chasing steelhead in Salmon, ID and the spay casters were all over the place there as well. I told my guide that I really wanted to try that one of these days and he went off on how stupid it was, how it was just a fad, and that I should save my money.
I drove nine hours to fish with this guy and I got skunked. Not even a bite. I'm taking his opinion on how bad Spey fisherman suck with a major bag of salt.
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Dave, from my highly limited experience with it, and from those I know who do it more regularly, it is highly effective. Far easier to cover more water, and do so more efficiently. It's not for me (yet), but neither are strike indicators, nymphs, or lead. Just a choice on how I like to fish.
However, one cannot argue about either's effectiveness. If you want to cover water more efficiently, with less effort, in order to have the highest odds of hooking a steelhead or salmon (or even trout in larger rivers), then spey casting is often the way to go. I don't agree that its some fad. Its been around for some time, but like many things (fly patterns, bamboo rods, CDC), its become more popular because more people are learning more about it. It would die if it didn't work or have benefits. Looks to me like anything but. The majority of fishermen I saw in Oregon were spey casting, for a reason other than just the "cool" thing to do.
I'll admit it was pretty cool to do the roll thing with it, and then shoot a mile of line across the big river with about as much effort as rolling a couple of weighted nymphs with a bobber and some split shot. Actually, it was easier than that, and the thing went sailing! It has its place. If I were going back to Alaska to salmon fish, I'd probably really consider taking a spey rod or two.
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I too watched the u-hube videos of the long casts and ease of casting. After 2 years steelheading in AK, and not quite being able to get long enough casts with my 7wt, I bought a 6wt switch. I wanted to balance using the rod here in Utah and AK/steelhead. I've only used it a few times on the Green and picked up fish on streamers and havent taken it our steelheading but I realized I need some instruction. It is fun and gives me something more to learn.
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