The Northern California Fly Fishing Board

When I do a 90 degree "simple" spey with approx. 30-35 feet of line,(with a 9' 8 weight Scott A2 and 8 wt. windcutter)if I use just a little too much energy the line goes directly upstream and lands in a limp pile.
Am I A) not using enough line,
using too light a line,
or C) something else?

Probably, not enough rod. 35 ft of line out for a 9 ft rod does not seem to work. try a spey rod, or less line.

just my thoughts.

greg

The problem was too much energy, not too little.
The actual cast that I was using was a rather drastic two-handed mend ( my rod has a "fighting butt" attached (they're also excellent for casting, try it sometime).

Hi Doug, On the single...

1) Set your stance toward your target (across I'm assuming)

2) Rotate your torso downstream toward your line on the dangle

3) Make a smooth even lift and sweep upstream by rotating your torso, don't lift too high, trust that the line will go where the tip goes. Try to avoid quickly ripping the line off the water, sometimes this will load the rod and when the line breaks free it spring the line upstream (tension cast). You can try a couple different lifts here to get the line free; maybe a small vertical lift and some wiggles, or a small flick vertically or even a tiny spiral to break the surface tension. Get it quietly off the water, then smooth sweep.

4) When the rod tip gets to the corner (just upstream from you, the point where you start to rotate it around you, accelerate lightly from here into the backcast D loop. Try to make this a straight motion; it should pull the line opposite your target. (If you need to, you can slightly lower the tip at this part of the sweep to make sure the line hits the water, but not too much; you want the tip of the line and the leader to hit the water straight and opposite your target.) Raise the tip up behind you to form the D loop. Wait for the line tip to touch down, the anchor set.

5) With the anchor set, go into your forward delivery cast.

Sounds like your very close to getting the timing right. A few more shots and you should be on the money

For a varient that sounds a little fancy (not really) but gets the anchor down ... At step 3, lift higher and up to the corner, snap the tip under the line (flick the tip under the moving line). This will send the line high and upstream. While the line is still flying out, for step 4 pull the line down out of the air toward where you'd like the anchor, sweep into the D. Wait for it... Fire!

If this makes no sense at all... check these links
http://www...g/tsinglespeyright.shtml and search/ask that forum

Eric

Doug M wrote:
When I do a 90 degree "simple" spey with approx. 30-35 feet of line,(with a 9' 8 weight Scott A2 and 8 wt. windcutter)if I use just a little too much energy the line goes directly upstream and lands in a limp pile.
Am I A) not using enough line,
using too light a line,
or C) something else?

30 feet should be easily done on a one handed rod, A limp pile usually means you dont have enough energy, ie a bad loop. I would try 2 things:
1) make sure that you have a crisp stop at the backstroke and forstroke
2) add a haul to your forstroke.

Also if you are having problems with 30 feet of line, maybe your are having problems with your back D loop? With a good back D loop, a crisp stop at back and forstroke, you shouldnt have the urge to overpower. Really try to make sure you crisply stop at 1 o clock.

Doug M wrote:
The problem was too much energy, not too little.
The actual cast that I was using was a rather drastic two-handed mend ( my rod has a "fighting butt" attached (they're also excellent for casting, try it sometime).

I do spey casts on a 6 weight single handed 9 foot rod, and I would suggest you tell us what your loop looks like? Are you not getting a crisp STOP at 1 o clock, causing you to get a big fat loop? Casting 40 feet even with a 1 handed rod is not a problem if you have a good stroke and D loop.

Are you sure he is doing a single spey? I had assumed he was doing a double spey:


Our starting position is on the dangle and it is our intention to cast (up to) 90 degrees across the river (you can do more but there are better ways of achieving this)

We will say that, for this example; we are right-handed, we are on the true right bank (looking across the river it is flowing left to right) and there is a down-stream wind (remember we want to keep the fly downwind)

Move your feet: stand facing square-on to the direction you want to finish the cast and rotate from the waist: so that your shoulders are square-on to the downstream direction (this is the best way to learn - once you know what you're doing you can hang out of trees, hop on one leg and generally break all the rules)

Lift the rod as you would in an overhead cast

Then, without stopping, take the tip of the rod around to the left side of the body, turning from the waist as you do, so that the rod is pointed almost directly upstream and the tip is about a foot from the surface. We want the fly to remain downstream, ideally just downstream of the direction we want to cast (if we cast upstream too hard and the fly lands upstream of our intended direction, all we do is let the current carry it downstream a little bit. If on the otherhand we do not get the fly close enough to our intended direction, we are going to loose too much energy on the forward cast, and so we have to roll the line back downsteam and start again)

Now we want to switch the line which we have taken upstream around to our right shoulder and put it into a D-loop. So we sweep our rod back downstream and up into our roll casting position. This rod movement we use is often called a half-moon dip. We lift the tip, dip the tip, and lift the tip up into a sweeping movement. The line will follow this movement and end up in a large D-loop off our right shoulder

no/msg

My take on your problem is that the pile up at the end of your cast is the result of overloading the rod...if the rod was designed to be a single handed (overhead casting) rod for an 8wt line, the 30-35 feet of line combined with the tension/stick/anchoring of the line on the water when you load the rod for the spey cast may be creating so much of a load that the rod cannot deliver enough energy to deliver the cast in a straight line...kind of like putting a 7 wt line on a 5 wt rod for short line nymphing...8-10 feet of the 7 wt line loads the rod for but when you try to cast 30 feet to a specific target, the line dunps into a pile because the rod is overloaded and is unable to generate enough energy to carry the added weight.

Try the same spey casting technique with this rod when it's loaded with a lighter (5, 6, or 7 wt) line?

My 2 cents.

Paul

At last, someone who has actually READ the question! You may be right, however, remember that I wanted the line to land at a 90 degree angle (I cast so that the rod tip ended up pointed directly across the river (roll cast)), but at the end of the cast the line ended 180 degrees away from the start.
Also, remember the windcutter is a weight forward, not a double-taper.

The British may have a different term for what I did , but to me, it was a single rollcast done to effect a change in direction.

Sorry I misinterpretted Doug. I figured the upstream lumpcoupled with too much power meant you were missing the anchor. It didn't understand you were talking about the delivery cast.

edit: you should be able to adjust your stroke to the rod load. Widen the arc for the deeper load. Try to get your anchor to only be the tip of the line and leader so the delivery roll doesn't have to pull a lot of line off the water.