Double Handers

[Maxg]

I've been off the air for a while, but on the DH subject it seems "You Know Who" has discovered the things and is in print on the subject.
Anyway to those interested parties fly fishing is about using fly rods, long or short and using all of the casting techniques developed for those rods. Spey casting for example was developed for big river fishing in European Rivers, and of course you can use those methods with short and long rods. Its just a matter of getting the relevent information relating to spey casting with 9 foot rods. Quite a few DVD's are around that cover the subject and its a fact that some of the Spey casts, like underhand, single Spey and the Belgian cast can let you fish in places where the usual back and foward standard 9 foot techniques are impossible. Like at the bottom of rock walls, on vegetated banks of rivers, high sloping banks of dams etc etc.
With long rods, in the 12/15 foot class you can cast further than 9 footers with bigger flies with less effort, two hands beats one hand regardless of how big you are. The extra length of the rod and the longer cast make beach fishing easier, and give bigger areas of coverage in estuaries. Long rod doesn't mean soft noodle since generally they are more like extended butt short rods, which actually makes the butt stiffer and the rod capable of handling heavier loads.
Example. A 15 weight 9 foot rod is designed to handle around 550gns and is hellish hard to cast. A DH 12# 12' rod will handle a tip load of around 380 gns and a butt load of 650, which puts it into the AFTMA 15# catagory, the TFO 12x12 for example handles a SA tungsten T40 competition 54' 625gn head very easily. These 12' rods are very easy to cast, usually just one backcast and one foward cast out to 120 feet. The two hand grip is balanced and very little energy gets expended.
The present fly fishing system, here anyway is a very narrow envelope system that really needs expanding to cover the same techniques used in other countries.
Take a look at a few DVD's. like Mel Kriegar and the Rio issues.
Be good MaxG.

[atlantic_salmon]

just out of interest can someone pm me who the "you know who" is and what magazine the text is in.

anyone interesred in the unofficial bible of spey casting should have a gander a dvd from a site called www.michaelevans.co.uk, and he does a half decent rod too.

and a bit of bragging to finnish with, on the way back to oz i stopped off in canada and landed king salmon to 40lb on the longer wand and just yesterday i landed 3 trevers to 9lb on my 12 foot 9 weight sage at the top end of long island in pummicestone passage at the top end of the falling tide, as they say in ireland " it twas great craic alltogether"...

[wessel]

I am still stuck on this line.....

"These 12' rods are very easy to cast, usually just one backcast and one foward cast out to 120 feet"

To be honest, my knowledge of spey casting extends so far as to bring to my minds eye the idea of twead jacketed gentleman wearing those typical olive green waders doing their thing on some private estate where poachers are shot at by game rangers carrying double barrel shotguns loaded with rocksalt.

120 feet you said..... better start finding out what the fuss is about.

Wess

[Maxg]

These things are not Spey rods and it isn't Spey casting, but generally the cast distance is about 10 feet per foot of rod length. Its all related to tip height and the arc the tip travels as you wave it about.
The rods are easier to cast than 9 footers, which if you think about it are energy expensive.
They are just a kind of fly fishing evolution, you know, things we should have been using a long time ago. If you have a 12 foot spin stick, hang your fly line on it and see how it goes. Rods are just rods after all. MaxG.