The River as my Teacher

In the classroom

 

I was beginning a day on the stream teaching a trout master class to another angler when he turned to me and asked “What is the agenda for today?”

I replied with a smile that we ‘Were going to let the river determine the agenda.’

I paused a moment…. What had come out of my mouth? After all, I was the teacher today, or was I? I decided to go with the flow, so to speak, and told the fellow angler, “I am the interpreter…. The fly-fishing translator to help solve the little challenges the river presents to us.”

“The river is the curriculum, and the course will change with every bend.”

 After a successful day presenting casts and techniques to open up the hidden doors I reflected… “We all get stuck in ruts, but if we lack an agenda and just follow the river, it will take us into uncharted halls of higher learning.”

 I learn every day from my teacher… the river. It is my professor of ease and difficulty, of frustration, surprise, and problem solving. The waters are my classroom. I decided to follow my new philosophy on the next solo outing.

 Instead of having an agenda, and rigging up at the car, I placed no fly on the line and simply went down to the side of the stream and sat awhile. What would I learn today? The next few hours would be an open book with the chapters hidden, and the solutions and morals to be discovered. . The problems were there – the solutions are the challenge for me to solve.

 I decided to fish every inch of water, and not pass up a challenge. How would I get my fly into a tangle with overhead cover hiding an undercut bank? I asked the teacher, but he just murmured back at me. I had to find the solution. After getting caught up several times, the solution occurred to me; get out of the water and walk around the obstacle and approach it stealthily from the upstream side. I was awarded with a feisty little brown trout that ate a dry fly presented with a modified roll cast with my body hidden by a bush. Only the tip of the rod ever showed over the water.

 In the next run a new lesson began. This one included a large trout cruising in shallow water slowly circling and eating some sort of bug. Here I had to solve the menu as well as the presentation. I placed on an ant and shot my back-cast into a bush behind me. The lesson was clear: take inventory, and don’t get your nose so far into the book that you lose sight of the big picture of the exercise. I nodded to the teacher and pressed on.

Here was a long riffle with a single big fish rising at the head of it. It required a 50 foot cast with a left reach-mend. I was up for the challenge. I stepped forward and stripped out line and the fish stopped rising. I had placed a foot into the tail of the pool and the small fish holding there had panicked and swum helter-skelter up the run and put down the big fish. I smiled at the lesson and began to move on when I spotted a beautiful orchid growing at streamside. Here was a part of the new lesson I failed to appreciate. Take time to smell the roses. I sat on the bank and closed my eyes. A few minutes passed as I listened to the river and the breeze in the trees, the warblers and a kingfisher calling and singing. Then I heard a ‘Slurp.’ Yes, grasshopper… here was another sublime side-lesson the teacher reminded me of. Taking time to pause resets the trout, and quiets their fear. I made a good cast and missed the strike. At least I had a shot.

The lessons continued into the evening. I learned: why it is important to tie one’s bootlaces properly, not to try to wade through quicksand, when to pass up the little fish for a single shot at a nice trout. When to use a bow-and arrow cast with a weighted streamer in a tangle, when to slow down, to eliminate my shadow, and when to by-pass a problem and come back to it later.

Passing up those challenges and whatever the river serves up to us is like choosing the same math problems that you already know the answers to from a book, and calling it education. Even as a ‘teacher’, I was still learning: learning with every cast and footstep. To close my eyes, to open them, to listen to the river…

Learning by breaking the habits of our common approach, and letting the fish and the river determine what we do… We must mirror the problem with a response or solution, not force our own preferred solution on the equation. Four plus four does not equal six, so why do all of us, me included often try to present a ‘six’ for the solution to diverse problems? We may be fishing a bobber and a nymph, and an opportunity presents itself that may call for a change in the proffered answer...  a dry fly or a change in position and a streamer… Do we change the answer to fit the problem and put on a proper fly for the water… or do we try to force the answer to be ‘six?’ Let the teacher tell you… listen.

 

My final lesson appeared to me as the sound of distant thunder rumbled… when to go home. The bell had rung… school was over for the day. What would tomorrow’s lessons be?

When we stop learning, we stop breathing. I took a deep breath of the smells of the forest, and smiled. Thank you teacher.

The Wisdom of Grasshopper Bridge

 

Sometimes not catching fish can spur observations that lead us deeper into understanding the world of trout and nature itself. That was the case one late summer day full of allergies, sneezing, and sunshine when a friend and I stopped at a tiny spring creek where a bridge runs over it.

 

When we got out of the car on that hot day, we immediately noticed that we were scattering grasshoppers. They were everywhere. An inch long and green, they bounced off our legs as we walked to the bridge to observe the water. Sure enough, trout were rising below the bridge, presumably feasting on the hoppers.

 

I quickly geared up and went downstream to work my way up to the bridge. I tied on a hopper and placed a cast among the fish. It went ignored. Puzzled, I began to vary the presentation: splatting the fly, dead drifting it, twitching it… all to no avail. My friend, watching from the bridge above, quickly caught a grasshopper in his cupped hands, and dropped it over the side of the bridge. GULP! A trout came shooting off the bottom as the natural insect hit the water and ate it with enthusiasm. I cast again. No dice. I changed flies. No luck. My friend dropped another hopper into the water. SMACK! A foot long brown feasted on the dainty morsel. I couldn’t get a grab. What was going on?

 

Then a car came slowly over the road and a local farmer drove over the bridge. The hoppers sunning themselves on the road scattered in a chaotic panic, many of them flying into the car, careening off the abutment, and falling in the water. The feeding frenzy that followed was a sight to see. I threw my hopper into the melee, but it got ignored again. This was a puzzle that needed some thought! I climbed back out of the water and joined my friend on his perch on the bridge. There we dropped more hoppers in the water, which were eaten like Oliver Twist going at his gruel. Interesting….

 

We went over to the other side of the bridge. The water was quiet on the upstream side. I cast a hopper into the pool and immediately hooked a nice brown trout. The puzzle was beginning to come together. The hoppers that fell off the bridge on either side were washed to the downstream side where they were quickly examined and eaten. The fish living on that side were so use to hoppers that they had become highly discriminating; counting the legs and measuring the size while examining the color of the bugs in a millisecond before eating them. The fish on the upstream side were not so discriminating, and could be fooled with an artificial fly. We experimented with our little hypothesis a few more times, and sure enough, the upstream fish were game, while the downstream fish were college-educated.

 

Getting back into the car and driving to a different section of river, we discussed and debated what we had learned. Perhaps it was not just the trout and the hoppers that provided us with lessons, maybe it was taking the time to observe and think on the stream while getting skunked that was the lesson in itself.

 

These years later, reflecting on the lessons of Grasshopper Bridge, I don’t remember the fish that well, instead, I remember the joy of learning. Those memories spur me these days to take more time out to observe and enjoy everything about this sport of fly-fishing. A sport that occurs among the wonders of nature, which if we make the effort to appreciate them, can often be much bigger than the fish.

Scales…. Of difficulty

 

“If God had intended us to weigh trout, he would have given them bigger scales."  Don Zahner

 

I had a conversation with another trout angler the other day, when he asked me “What is the biggest trout you have ever caught?” I am a little too sly and old to be drawn into this ego trap, so I answered “10 inches.” He looked at me strange, and walked away to refresh his barley pop.

 

Of course I was being facetious, but as I thought later about memorable fish this year, it seemed that many of the bigger fish were left out of the trip down memory road, and instead I seemed to value fish I had worked for with a special presentation, an amazing cast, or….? Foremost may be a ten inch brown that took a grass hopper cast with little back-cast room at fifty feet and requiring the fly to ride down a 6” slot and kiss the left side of a boulder to put it under a clump of grass. When the little brown ate the fly, my friend exclaimed” Wow! You earned that fish!”

 

How do we measure success? Or should we? Is it measured in size, quantity, or happiness? Can that happiness come from a small fish caught a certain way? The questions and the philosophy filled my head as I hiked the coulee hills near my home and finally emerged accompanied by a cheap merlot, (it was a good Monday) and some jazz later in the evening.

 

See, the comeback to that anglers question should have been “What is the most beers you have drank?” and then “Now, what is the best beer you have ever had?” Provokes thought doesn’t it?

 

Satisfaction does not always equal large or many, and neither skill. A sip of a vintage wine may be more memorable than the college party when you drank all that punch, strapped a bra to your head and ran naked into the dean’s swimming pool… or maybe not…. Bad example.

 

Degrees of difficulty may be like a fine wine that makes the dinner come together. You figured it out. You delivered the perfect cast. You beat the wind, tied the perfect fly, figured out the hatch, etc. You solved the little problems on the stream.

 

Size does not necessarily equate skill as one angler figured out after he returned from a big western tail-water full of pictures and stories of 20” browns and rainbows, only to get skunked in a spring creek ten minutes from my home. This is why some of the most popular destinations in fly-fishing involve a simple equation: Where can one take a person who can’t cast or read water, and get them into a big fish? (or even a fish at all!)

 

Aha… are the lights going on yet? How many pictures of enormous rotting Midwest salmon do we have to look at before we realize size is relative? They don’t count you say? Well… they did for the guy who caught them…. Which is fine too. We all have to start somewhere.

 

However, there inevitably comes a point when we perform a miracle on the stream, and are rewarded with what we consider the booby prize: a small fish.

 

I think it is the effort and the skill that are their own reward. Satisfaction and difficulty are inherently related.

 

So don’t get down in the dumps when some fumble klutz bounces a wooly bugger off the back of their head and somehow hooks the biggest trout you have ever seen. That 6” trout you took with an unweighted nymph fished upstream without a strike indicator has it beat.

 

Just don’t get it mounted…..

 

 

The Hidden Run

 

As I approached the river and turned my car slowly down the winding access road, my sense of anxiety grew. Would there be anyone in my hidden secret run? Would anyone trespass on my last privacy on the water? I was relieved to see the opening through the bushes marking the way to the river unguarded by another car, and carefully nosed mine into the nearby scrub a hundred yards short of the access point. I retrieved the magnetic sign I had made and attached it to the side of my car. ‘Biohazard! Feces collection and vector study vehicle’ it read. That should keep people away! I hopped into my waders and ran for the opening before anyone could spot me, dropping toy rubber rattlesnakes and spiders as I went. I would rig up the rod later on the river. Less time for somebody to spot me by the road and find my hidden run: my only sanctuary.

Then I woke up from the dream….

 For that is the irony… The hidden run does not exist. At least as much as it is truly hidden. It is there for all to see and is not secret, it only lies obscured by the lack of ability in reading water and breaking with common convention. Later that day I pulled into the hidden run. There were people walking their dogs on the road, and anglers driving past to other destinations on the river. Even if they found my hidden run, it would still be hidden for they would not fish it.

Why not?

On our tributaries to the Great Lakes and especially my local river, fly anglers pursue anadromous fish such as Steelhead and large Brown Trout the same way they pursue the salmon, that is in general one of two methods is used. The first is sight-fishing: find a fish spawning and fish to it until you catch it, frighten it off, or foul-hook it. The second method is even more productive. Dams and waterfalls have a habit of slowing the progress of fish up the river to spawn. Often they pool up or congregate the fish for several hours and even days. In some instances, the obstacle is too difficult or high to jump over at all, and the fish reach an existential and real dead end right there. Here is a good spot for lots of good catching. Note I didn’t say good fishing, that might be something different if we are sport fishing and not gathering for subsistence. Both of these methods place many fish on the end of an angler’s line, so they are the most productive method, if not questionable in a sporting sense. In this case, what is productive and common convention does one other thing: it prevents our metaphorical ‘Hidden Run’ from ever being discovered by the madding crowds.

Why? Because there are no waterfalls or dams, and only the top head of the pool may have the occasional odd salmon struggling to spawn with its back half out of the water. Beyond those obvious signals and signs, the water is a confusing tumble of boulders, riffles, pools, slack water and fast shoots. In other words, it needs interpretation or reading, it takes analysis. It takes more effort to find fish in holding water than to just shoot deer in a petting zoo. Opening that page opens the world’s longest book. A book and a study so rich with promise and eye-opening that hidden runs are suddenly everywhere, and this is the second irony, the hidden run both does not exist unless it remains hidden by lack of wisdom, and it exists everywhere afterwards when that knowledge is gained and placed into practice.

Still reading?

Lets give a few examples. In spring when the water is high on our tributaries, anglers walk the banks and almost always ask each other the same question like a ritual: “Have you seen any fish?” Last year I had a nice conversation with another angler in a parking lot while rigging my gear. He went down to a shallow riffle, wandered around the water looking down and peering for twenty minutes or so, and then left. I started working a sweet piece of water that fishes best when the river is high and clear. Twenty casts later, I hooked a screamer of a steelhead in the boulders at the tail out. The other angler had been within 50 yards of this water, but instead of unlocking the possibilities, began putting into operation the common convention of looking for fish. Then this spring two anglers were walking down the river in this very spot, actually walking through the good water when one of them recognized me and asked if they were in good water. “Is this featureless water O.K. too?” they asked. I looked at the run with a hidden Rosetta-Stone of little clues as to boulders and pockets, scallops and spits and told them that indeed they were in good water. Then after they left ten minutes later, I proceeded down the run and briefly hooked a fish exactly where they were standing.

Trout too:

The same quagmire of convention and ease of path taken also happens on trout streams to all our detriment. Often trout anglers concentrate their efforts of two distinct things in the water. LUNKER structures or artificial undercut banks providing cover, and riffles at the head of pools. Smart anglers too, for the riffle is a hatch factory providing broken water and cover, and the LUNKER structure holds the majority of fish in a given pool in most situations. However there are a lot of other targets out there. Fishing to a rising fish with a dry in the true English style will tell us where the fish intercept the bugs, but what about when they don’t? Do we pass by the log sunk in the side of the tail-out for the obvious ten-incher rising in the riffle above, or… would it be a good time to explore that water with our fly? If we never depart from our common path, we may never find new avenues of discovery and knowledge, and yes… pleasure. But that might mean taking that strike-indicator and bead head nymph that has been glued to our line for the last ten years, and placing on a Sawyer style lightly weighted nymph and working it actively and with thought and planning. On my local trout stream I have meet some great anglers, some characters, and everything in-between. Once during a hatch of mixed Hendricksons and March Browns, I came across two guys who were fishing prince-nymphs downstream on a dead-drift. They were working down the stream as I was working up. I greeted them politely, they told me they had not hooked anything yet, and I asked them if they had any mayfly imitations around a size 12. Nope, they both always have used size 12 prince nymphs with a split-shot or two. They continued on their way shackled by their own convention. The hidden run that day was all around in the air, and had wings.

If we walk the same path everyday we see the same scenery, only differently in hues, never a different view entirely, and if we follow the hatchery truck, always fish the same 3 flies, or ask everyone else what they do so we can ‘bah’ like sheep in the same language, the hidden run will remain locked tight. We have to get away from the dams and waterfalls, and think beyond the riffles.

Being skunked is part of the process of learning the keys to opening those doors to the hidden run, as is stubbing one’s toe or getting lost.

So what is the lesson or the take-away? Perhaps it is simply that by taking the path that leads to the initial success of fish caught consistently, and not breaking with that tradition at some point in our progression, we have taken a short cut to a closed book and a dark forest. In order to find the path again, we may need to go fishing and not worry about the catching. Then the discoveries amongst the little riffles and eddies may lead us to the hidden runs and the spaces between the notes where the music is sweetest. The funny part is that it has been there all along, but how fragrant is the flower when finally uncovered. Asking about the secret spot may bring answers, but finding one’s own will bring fulfillment.
The door is right there, and there is no footpath…. Just look out for my rubber rattlesnakes!

Some thoughts from the riffle

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Getting started in 'spey' casting

Learning to cast a ‘spey’ or two-handed rod
Copyright 2010 Erik F. Helm

Note: This article is designed to be a simple introduction to spey casting, and how to best get involved in it. More in-depth resources can be found at the end of the article.

One of the most common questions I am asked on the river, and one that is commonly seen on internet forums is “How do I learn to cast a two handed or ‘spey’ rod?”

Fishing with two-handed rods has exploded in popularity recently. New rods and lines have made it easier than ever to pick up spey casting, but the plethora of tackle available has also led to confusion among new spey casters regarding rod length, style, types of lines, etc., and can lead to a very frustrating learning experience. The entire language of ‘spey’ can be confusing as well.

Spey casting is essentially a form of aerialized roll cast with a change of direction. It utilizes a loop of line (often referred to as a ‘D’ loop) that is anchored in the water at the tip of the fly line or leader, thus providing enough resistance to allow the rod to load as it would in the overhead cast. It is mostly used in swinging flies in the water, which is accomplished by casting across the river and letting the fly drag back across to dangle below you. Drag in this case is good, as is a tight line to control the fly.

Before I cover the learning process, let us briefly examine the different two-handed or ‘spey’ casting styles and their equipment.

Methods

Traditional:

Traditional spey casting made its way to America and Canada via the British Isles, originating on the river Spey in Scotland. Typically using rods longer than 13 feet and up to 18 feet long, traditional spey casting is a method designed to defeat a lack of back casting room, and allow an angler to cover the river with a swung fly much easier than conventional tackle would allow. The rods are often, but not always, full or progressive in their flex. The lines used are usually quite long, with weight-forward tapers running from 65 to 90 feet. More traditional double-taper lines are also utilized. Due to the nature of using longer lines on long rods with slow to medium actions, the traditional method uses more body rock and pivoting motion, as well as exact timing. The caster often uses a short pause after the formation of the ‘D’ loop in order to allow the rod to load properly. Traditional casting is the most graceful form of casting with a two handed rod, and is often the most difficult to perfect. Traditional casting makes total use of both hands, the lower pulling back to the body, while the upper hand steers the cast by extension. Traditional casts include the single-spey for an upstream wind, and the double-spey for a downstream wind. Traditional casting is used mostly to deliver small to medium steelhead and salmon flies to distances over 65 feet. The lines are commonly of the floating variety or have a sinking tip. Some anglers cast full sinking lines using this method as well.

Scandinavian style:

Often abbreviated as ‘Scandi’ and popularized by Goran Anderson, the Scandinavian style often makes use of stiffer rods than the traditional method. Many are shorter as well, although when casting great distances, rods up to 15 feet long are utilized. The lines used are in essence shooting-heads. Usually running from 30 to 50 feet long, these heads are tapered and attached to a running line of PVC or monofilament. A long leader of 14 feet or longer is utilized to anchor the cast in the water. A very strong use of the lower hand is emphasized in order to load the rod, as is a lower hand position on the rod. The upper hand extends very little, and the arms are kept closer to the body than the traditional style. The cast requires a minimum of effort compared to the traditional style, and some find it less fatiguing. For those of you coming from a single-handed casting background, learning the lower hand power stroke may be difficult. Casts that work best are the single-spey and snake-roll, both being casts that use a touch and go anchor. Other casts can be used as well. Scandinavian casting is used in full floating applications, as well as using sink tips, and even density-compensated full-sinking lines.

Modern Spey casting:

Making the most of the recent innovations in rods and lines, the modern style generally uses a shorter 50 to 65 foot head length in the weight-forward line. The rods are usually of medium length and generally run from around 12 feet to 14 feet long. The rod action is typically between traditional and Scandinavian: not too fast, not too slow. Popularized in the Pacific North West of the United States by anglers such as Jim Vincent, Simon Gawesworth, and Dec Hogan, the modern style is probably the easiest to learn. Less body-rock and pivoting is needed, and the casts are less apt to be sabotaged by improper timing. The arms are used in unison to power the rod, with the power stroke being delivered mostly with the lower hand. The progressive rod and heavy line does most of the work. Modern casting covers the full gambit from a full floating line to using heavy sinking tips.

Skagit Casting:

The most recent style of casting is the Skagit style. Born by necessity on the Skagit River in Washington State, the Skagit style uses very short and heavy heads attached to a running line much like the Scandinavian style does. The difference is that the Skagit head is less tapered and heavier, being designed primarily for, but not always limited to fishing with a sink tip attached to the head. Rods for Skagit casting come in all lengths from 12 to 15 feet, but the rods purposely designed for this style have actions that are slower than in Scandinavian casting. The casting stroke-length is shorter as well. Most Skagit casting is performed with a sustained anchor cast such as the double-spey, the Perry poke or Armenian cast, or the snap-T. Deep sink tip work and large flies work well with the Skagit style.

Cast groups, anchor, water direction, and wind.

In the prior examination of casting styles, I mentioned some casting strokes and anchor groups. Let us briefly take a look at when and why to utilize them.

Wind is the prevailing factor in determining which spey cast to utilize. When your fly is on the water and off to one side of your body, a wind blowing into you will often result in landing the fly in your ear or somewhere else, resulting in an impromptu body piercing. Thus, the casts are divided roughly into upstream and downstream wind casts. In general terms, the single-spey, snap-T, and Armenian or Perry poke cast are used when the wind is blowing upstream toward the caster. The anchor and D-loop occur on the down-wind side of the body, so hooking oneself is less likely. Consequently, the double-spey and snake-roll are used when the wind is blowing downstream. The forward-spey is the one cast that does not change direction, and is effectively an aerial roll-cast. The forward-spey is less a fishing cast and is usually used to reposition the line downstream prior to beginning a spey cast.

Water direction plays a huge part too. The right-handed caster would use the double-spey and snake roll when the river is flowing from their left, and the other casts when the river is flowing from their right.

These casts can also be divided into two groups by how the anchor is achieved. The single-spey and snake-roll are ‘touch and go’ casts. The line is aerialized during the cast, and the anchor is only a kiss of the end of the line or the leader on the water. The line itself loads the rod. They are ideal for floating lines. The second group of casts can be referred to as ‘sustained anchor’ casts. The double-spey, snap-T, and Perry poke or Armenian casts all use the sustained or locked line tension of pulling against the line on the water to load the rod. While the touch and go casts use little or no pause depending on the length of line used, the sustained anchor casts use a slight pause between the set of the anchor and the D-loop stroke.

All these casts can be performed with either hand uppermost on the rod, depending on the circumstances. Some casters prefer changing hands when appropriate, while others use the strong arm uppermost at all times, a practice that is commonly referred to as ‘cack-handed.’



Now that you have a basic sense of the casts, anchor groups, and styles of casting with a two-handed rod, we can look at the learning path to allow you to realize the joy of casting and fishing with them.



How to learn:

First things first. Before you go out and spend your next mortgage payment on a spey rod, line, and reel, think about the different styles of casting and ask yourself some questions. Will you be using the rod primarily for sink tip work, or will you use a floating line too? What types of rivers you will fish is important too. Using longer rods of 14 or 15 feet on small rivers with trees overhanging the banks can be frustrating and lead to a broken rod, and trying cast a 90 foot taper traditional line is probably not the best choice for these circumstances. Your fly has a higher chance of ending up in the overhanging trees above/behind you and the line will likely not fully load the rod at these distances. Likewise, trying to use short rods and lines on vast rivers may also lead to frustration. In general, the longer the rod, the farther one can cast, especially when wading deep. There are a lot of considerations here.

Once you have a rough idea of what style you want to learn, get some professional instruction. I didn’t, and it took years to correct flaws that could have never have occurred in the first place if I had instruction. The lessons do not need to be weeks long and cost an arm and a leg. Many instructors are available at gatherings of spey casters known as ‘claves.’ One can get formal and informal instruction as well as trying out different rods and lines. The events are usually free, the more formal instruction may not be.

Now that you have fooled around with a dozen rods and a myriad of lines, had some formal instruction, and wrapped the line around every conceivable object including yourself and your poor dog, it is time to start kicking the tires at purchasing a rod. Get as many qualified opinions as possible, and utilize online forums such as the Speypages.com. Be careful. Frame your questions properly, and beware that just like belly buttons, everyone has an opinion. What works for them may not work for you. When you have some sort of idea what you want, visit a qualified flyshop where you can speak to someone who knows what he or she is talking about when it comes to two-handed rods. Keep in mind that the rod and line must perfectly compliment each other. Bad line and rod combinations ruin spey casting. Don’t break the bank at first, but buy a quality rod with a warranty. The longer the rod, the more chance it has of getting caught in car doors, or tangled in trees. A warranty can pay for a rod many times over.

Along with your first rod purchase, I recommend a DVD or two. Spey casting is dynamic, and the motions are not easily described in print. A video can make things much easier. Later, when you are analyzing your casting and correcting flaws, a book can aid in the learning process.


The Art of Practice

First, put that pretty fly away. Use a piece of yarn as the fly and tie it to your leader. You don’t need any accidental body-piercing at this stage.

Now that you have narrowed down your options to a rod, line, and casting style suitable for your waters and intended purpose, stick with it. Fooling around with different styles at this point can lead to disaster. Practice one cast at a time. Start with the easier casts such as the forward-spey, and the double-spey. Work on these casts until you can make the head of the line and the leader turn over cleanly. Use a floating line when beginning. Floating lines give you a better feel for your stroke. Start with just the head of the line out of the guides. Worry about distance and shooting line later. Just as in golf, we cannot start learning properly by trying to drive 300 yards. Cast in near slow motion. That way you can correct errors as they develop. Take notes. Keep a casting log recording errors, fixes, thoughts, and inspirations. This will prove an invaluable tool. At some point, you will need to determine if you want to switch hands or cast cack-handed. Some people are nearly ambidextrous, while others (like me) can’t get the hang of casting with the ‘other’ or weak hand on top. If the two-handed rod is too much at the beginning, practice with a soft single-handed rod. Spey casting is not limited to the long rod. Some people feel that adding the use of both hands, at the same time as attempting to learn a whole new legion of strange casts, is difficult to overcome. Don’t be afraid of the single-hander, the casts are the same.

As you advance and become competent with the various casts, begin to vary the depth of water in which you are casting. Cast both short and long distances. Have a plan to your practice, be methodical, don’t just go out there and flail around.
Above all, try not to get frustrated. Even the best casters in the world had to start just where you are now.


Common errors:

This list is far from definitive, instead it will point out the most commonly seen errors by beginners that lead to frustration as the line lands in a spaghetti-like pile around your head.

· Over emphasis on the upper hand. You will have to learn to use the lower hand to help load and power the rod.

· Hacking or chopping wood. Arms hurt yet? If they do it may be a sign that you are not stopping the rod high enough and positively on the forward cast. This leads to hacking or chopping, and downward pointing floppy loops of line.

· Too much line-stick on the anchor. The cast should be able to pull the line out of the water. If you hear a splash and slurpy sound on your forward cast, and the line goes nowhere, too much line is anchoring the cast. Set your anchor closer, and make a more positive D-loop stroke.

· Casting too fast. This is the cardinal sin. If there is one thing that you should keep repeating, it is “Slow Down!” Spey casting is a graceful waltz, not a break-dance.

· Using too much effort. Spey casting should be easy. When you are casting correctly, it should be a joy. Let the rod and the line do most of the work.

No matter how accomplished a caster you become, casting practice will enhance your enjoyment of time spent fishing by removing the process of working out kinks to your off time. Standing in a run full of steelhead or Atlantic salmon, while futzing with your casting, can lead anyone to snap their rod in two in frustration.



Some recommendations:

I have opinions too. One of these is that one of the best ways to learn spey or two-handed casting is with a medium length rod, and a short-head spey line. This would be the modern method covered earlier. A moderate action rod of 13 to 14 feet, and a line with a 50-55 foot head is a perfect learning tool. If the rod is too stiff, feedback is affected. You can always buy that super fast action cannon later… once you have learned to cast.

Using lines with heads shorter than 50 feet while initially learning may result in developing a casting style that does not allow one to easily move to casting longer lines.

If it all sounds too confusing, remember that we just covered a lot of information, and that every journey begins with a single step. That initial step could open up a whole new world of fly-fishing enjoyment.

Some select resources:

Spey Casting by Simon Gawesworth (book)
Modern Spey casting by Rio Products (DVD)
From Spey to Z (DVD)
The art of Speycasting (DVD)
Speypages.com: Informational site and online forums
Two-Handed Fly Casting: Spey Casting Techniques by Al Buhr (book)


Erik Helm is a fly-fisherman and writer based in Wisconsin. He has chased steelhead with the two-handed rod extensively in the Pacific North West as well as the Great Lakes region. Erik teaches fly casting to individuals and groups, as well as keeping a literary fly fishing blog. His work can be found at Classicangler.blogspot.com

Grounding and progression

Grounding and progression

“Why the ‘Classic Angler?’” I pondered the other evening. I began writing essays under the moniker “The Classical Angler,” or “The Classic Angler” when I was forced to come up with a domain name for my internet writing ventures. I considered the name for a few seconds, and then ended up committed to it. I still don’t know why I chose it. However, in these recent evening musings and daydreams, I think I put my fingers around it.
Classical.

I guess to me this refers to the fine arts: Music, literature, architecture, visual art, etc. Its connotation is a little less direct, and here lies the majority of thought and substance: A dedication to fundamental principles and roots, an emersion in study and examination, technique and theory. It also refers to tradition, but that is another essay altogether.

Lost yet? I am.

Allow me to map out my train of thought. The map is drawn on an old used cocktail napkin, so forgive me for straying or getting lost.

Classical music is structurally the most advanced and involved form of music. Take the counterpoint of Bach, or the building development of a Beethoven symphony, one cannot but listen critically. It is also difficult to learn. Many of today’s most popular musicians have roots in classical music. It teaches technique. This is why my father practiced the piano incessantly, and why, when advising a talented young jazz bassist, Dad encouraged him to attend the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and study classical as well as Jazz. It was good advice as it turns out. Once the technique, theory, and structure are understood and mastered, one can branch out and create or interpret.

It was the same with my mother’s painting. She studied technique incessantly both at the old Layton School of Art, as well as on her own, often hauling home armloads of books on the great European masters every week. She learned to mix her own mediums and colors from scratch. People often wondered how she was able to paint and sketch in so many diverse styles and wander from somber to exuberant moods in landscapes. The answer was that she spent years building a foundation.

Perhaps the discipline of that foundation is the main road I am trying to find…

This can be applied to all of life, as well as fly-fishing: learning to walk before trying to run, or studying the elements of a discipline as Marcus Aurelius would.

If you have followed some of my writings, you would know that tend to over think things, and am often guilty of a lack of discipline that allows me, for example, to attempt to tie Atlantic Salmon married wing flies before I know how to place the thread on the hook. My path is not always an even one.

We all tend to want to receive five minutes of instruction or study in the underlying foundations and elements of a discipline, and then go forth and conquer the world. Impatience? Perhaps.

In the movie Shine, the young David Helfgott is taken to his first professional piano teacher by his father, who instructs him to teach young David how to play Rachmaninoffs notoriously brutal 3rd piano concerto; a piece so devilish that it is known as “The mountain.”

The teacher instead grounds the pupil in Mozart.

I made the same mistake. The first major writing I did was to produce a 300-page memoir. This ambitious project took a full year, but since I had not yet learned to properly use language, it is requiring laborious and tedious editing. Instead, I should have first concentrated on short works. Study, learn, and then build on the foundation and progress.


Some people fumble around in mediocrity for a while, and then, concluding that they are stuck there, return to the roots and begin to study and practice the essential basics. Most people though, refuse to return to the beginning to learn.

In fly-fishing, I can find no better example of this than casting.

Casting is the one thing we anglers can actually control. We can’t make the fish bite, control the water temperature, clarity, or height, or calm the wind, but we can be prepared for anything our fishing outing throws at us by practicing the elements of proper casting.

One of the most common things I see on streams, lakes, and rivers is frustration caused by an inability to make the proper cast needed. This could be a wind-defeating double haul across the river to deliver a popper under a tree limb, or it could be a delicate ten-foot cast in a crystal clear and tiny stream with overhanging branches and spooky trout.

Yet, as I teach private and group casting lessons, or observe anglers on the water, I see the same persons making the same mistakes and exhibiting frustration. It is the rare person that, after struggling for a while, goes back to basics and solves his or her issues.

Its funny, golfers will spend hours at the putting green and driving range in order to look less like a buffoon in front of their boss at the annual company outing, but the same person will make a trip to the Henry’s Fork without the ability to mend line or roll-cast.

I don’t know why this is, but it seems universal.

Where was I? Ah, here I am on the right edge of the cocktail napkin next to the gravy stain and just short of the place marked ‘X.’

I guess it is my personal philosophy that in order to understand things one has to dismantle them, isolate the essential structures, and ground oneself in the fundamental underlying elements of technique that together make up the discipline or activity.

If you will, a classical approach.

If I had to create a moniker a second time, I might go with “The philosophical fool.”