Fly Saving Casts

Ted,

I've been know to try a whole array of casts to get the line out in difficult conditions and situations! Yes, normally in trying to deal with a wind that is blowing towards me I will cast a little side-arm to try to keep the line from being stalled by the wind. If it is not blowing too hard it seems to help, however in a truly stiff wind I just make up my mind to shorten up and really focus on the "in close" water!

It is funny that you bring up me and a side-arm motion - it is sometimes a nemisis of mine. As I normally use long rods they give me the ability to get a bit lazy and I let my right shoulder casts "tip over" a little. Since the length of the rod allows me to get away with the side-arm motion I pick up bad habits, then when I extend out into longer casts I wonder (for a few casts at least) why I'm getting too much line stick.

This topic has got me onto one of my favourite little rants, that is I feel that the mark of a great caster is the ability to present the fly to the fish - no matter what the conditions. Too often we get stuck on how far we can cast, I know - I do it all the time. It is so much fun to fire out monster casts that it is easy to get carried away and forget why we are really there - it is called fishing - not casting.

Many people get into spey fishing because of the lure of the long cast and I'll agree with Dennis Dickson and his criticism of 2-handers fishing the wrong water ( though I did once taunt him by chucking a long cast over his pontoon boat with my 18' B&W as he drifted by me at the Darrington Bridge on the Sauk). The true value of the 2-hander is its ability to fish the water and one of the key ingedients to that is flexibility. By that I mean have an open mind about your fishing and casting - work on all the casts and styles of casting that you can - you'll never know when a strange little cast like a square-cut single spey may catch you the fish of a lifetime!

I took Derek Brown's three day course on the Deschutes this fall and he taught two casts appropriate for close-to-the-bank situations - The square-cut and the double-roll casts.

He spent the most time on the square-cut. Since the square cut is described elsewhere in this thread. I'll only add that Derek initiates the cast by lifting up and toward the bank (about 1 meter). This is probably what permits one to get the anchor set further away from the bank than a classical single spey.

As for the double-roll cast, he only demo'd the cast and we didn't really have time to practice it. However, when Derek demo'd the cast, he backed right up into the bushes and launched the cast about 75 feet. Beautiful.

What I remember of the cast is probably not enough to enable someone to execute it. But I'll write down the steps and maybe it will trigger someone with more experience who can describe the double roll more precisely:

(1) From the dangle, execute the first part of a double spey (except don't cast your fly, just lay the line down on the water - With a 15 ft rod, this simply brings the fly 15 ft closer to you).
(2) Execute a backhand roll cast with a reach move, i.e., a classical reach cast. When Derek did this the fly and the line moved out into midstream about 45 degrees to the current.
(3) Switch hands and execute another roll cast. If you need a greater angle, put a reach into the second roll cast.

Cheers,

Michael