baldmountain said:
I think it depends on the caster. I'm 5' 9" also. I keep my bottom hand close to my body just the way Juro told me too and find that I have a good 5 or 6" of cork above my top hand. The handle on my rod is 24" so 22" seems like PLENTY to me. If I put my top hand at the end of the cork I'd feel like my hands were WAY too far apart.
I appreciate the vote of confidence Geoff, as I recall your lift and sweep became much more consistent as opposed to having the bottom hand out in front away from the body during the lift / sweep.
You might recall the bottom hand can travel away from the body with the rod drift into the d-loop provided it follows 'the elbow rule' and does not trunk. It quickly comes back in as part of the finishing stroke, of course.
However I am a 'top o the cork' kind of guy with the upper hand. The lift and sweep feel more comfortably leveraged with a good span of the hands, and as a vee-grip caster the upper hand tracks a long and true path while the bottom hand gets a lot of room to pull the butt in. This is just personal preference and not meant in any way to take away from the ultra-efficient motions of the underhand / scandinavian methods.
I guess in the end it's about where/how we individually derive personal joy from casting. I love the long smooth motions of spey casting, the unhurried grace of a long line sweeping around into position, the balances of pushing and pulling, the dynamics and kinetics, white mice and the spiraling snakes, and the hands spaced good and wide. Others would not.
Again, we're lucky to have so many choices in Spey gear nowadays!