[Grampa Spey]

A lot of people are not aware that Rio (Jim and Simon) came out later this year with the Grand Spey 7/8 to shut up the whiners with 7141's like me.

Simon got me a loaner to try, and so far the Grand Spey 7/8 floating line with no tips and my 7141 seem to be perfectly matched.

The combo works well in my local environment from hell, the Napa river with tidal effects and constant wind and a pier to cast from.
With a 15 foot furled leader, the combo handles striper flies from size 2 to 6 fairly effortlessly. With Snake Rolls, it can be a little awesome even with shifting winds.

I used the combo on the Lower Rogue recently. The wind was a constant factor. The half pounders and 2 salt steelies were out 50 to 70' from a comfortable wade position. Flies from size 2 to 12 were easily handled. The wind was so strong and tricky that my 7136 stayed in its case. In a river right, snake roll casts and double speys were fairly effortless. I was casting into the brown colored part of the line with most casts. The line mends like a dream and what little shooting I did, it shot well. There was minimal line sinking at the end of a day fishing and a few if any water kinks. There were Zero wind knots with it and the 15' furled leader

The only problems I had were in spots with the wind directly in my face, probably my poor casting. I did learn to get the line and leader out of the water before a jet boat came by With a lot of line and that long furled leader, the jet boat kicked up a lot of algae and scum onto the line, that really limited any casts until you got it off the line and furled leader. Also, like othe spey lines, if it got caught in a downstream eddy in the d loop area, it was best to move down stream and out of the eddy effect.

If you have a 7141, Rio's new Grand Spey 7/8 floater could be a great line for you.

Simon, I will keep the trial line for a couple of weeks, longer. I have two more rivers to try it on and Bob Pauli wants to try it with one of his rods and my 7141.

Congratulations to Rio again for another great line. Thank you Simon for getting the line to me for my personal test.

 

[Dana]

GrandSpeys are monsters for the snake!

I love the GrandSpey for snake rolls. My favorite combination right now is the GrandSpey8/9 and a Loop Blue 10150--effortless casting and shoots like a rocket! I just bought a new 7/8 GrandSpey, and based on your review Grampa I am really looking forward to trying it.

 

[Grampa Spey]

Dana re GS 7/8

What rod will you be using the GS7/8 with?

By the way thanks for all of your instructional material in your news letters on the Snake Roll. That and the patience of Bob Pauli enabled me be able to do my limited Snake Roll.

I would to see you snake roll the new GS7/8. That would be quite a sight.

Speaking of Snake Rolls and fairly new Rio Lines, if you ever get a chance to snake roll Bob Meiser's new 5/6 switch rod and Rio's 5/6 Wind Cutter, it is a blast. Other one handed fishers just look at you. One on the Chetco said, "What the hell are you doing with that rod and line beside getting 60' out there and catching fish?"

When I replied the Snake Roll, he looked at me like I was a demon from Lucifer.

 

[Dana]

I'm going to try the 7/8 with the Loop Grey 9130-4, the 8124-4 and a couple of prototypes I've been testing. I know it might seem a little weird to underline a 9 weight so much but I find that I often do this with the new extended belly spey lines. Since I tend to hold most or all of the head outside the rod tip when casting these lines I often find that stepping down in line weight gives me the performance I'm after without the extra grain weight. Of course, all rod and line combinations are different so I like to experiment to find just the right one for the rods I tend to fish most. In general, I tend to step down one or in some cases two line weights from the rod's rating with the GrandSpey and XLT--I've mentioned the 8/9 GrandSpey on the Loop Blue 10/11 for example. With this combination I strip in until the color change is at the third snake guide from the top when I'm making long snake rolls. This turns the line into a giant shooting head since all I have in the remaining guides is running line. The 9/10 also works well, but I like the the 8/9 a touch better.

To me the snake is a really fun cast because it seems so improbable--it just doesn't look like it is going to work. Spin the rod around and suddenly all of this line goes flying out across the river. Watching a really good snake roller slowly move through the motions and then effortlessly pop out 120ft is a real treat. It took me a long time to "get" the snake but I'm glad I persisted because it is so much fun to do.

I'm glad to hear that the articles were helpful. The snake was always a tricky cast for me--the one I always had to think about--and it was a good experience to write the instructional stuff because it pulled a lot of things together for me too. I'm currently looking at updating things with a 3rd article on the cast.

 

[Grampa Spey]

Dana and the GS 7/8

Thanks for your reply.

This little tidbit backs up what Simon said about pulling the color change back into the guides. Some one else suggested holding the color change in your fingers. I found that either works and helps me with the snake roll versus the color change at the tip of the rod. You commented:

"With this combination I strip in until the color change is at the third snake guide from the top when I'm making long snake rolls. This turns the line into a giant shooting head since all I have in the remaining guides is running line. "

I had found this out by accident and felt that I was doing something wrong until I read Simon's suggestion and the other Speyer's suggestion. Now you have clarified it. This little rule/step makes the snake roll very easy and effective with Bob Meiser's new 5/6 swithrod and Rio's 5/6 floating line as well as using the 7141 with the GS 7/8.

You and Bob Meiser should get together re a video/a cd with snake rolls, underhand casting, turbo casting and other casts we don't get to see and only read about. I know Bob has intended to do a CD, but he is so busy with his new rods. I'm sure that a lot of us would be willing to buy a CD with you two on it and other speyers showing us how to do certain casts that are impossible to get from a piece of paper. Simon's/Rio's video does a great job re the double and single spey. After that we are one our own trying to decode circles on 1 dimensional paper, which most of us can't decode.

Again thanks for sharing with all of us.

 

[Dana]

I was asked to participate in a video 6 months ago but the project was shelved. The high production value they wanted to incorporate would've cost $40,000 - $50,000 USD, and with the 25% downturn in the fly tackle industry the production company decided to hang on a bit until the industry stabilized.

The technology to make good quality video and dvd is readily available to the average person--I already have most of what I need. The problem is time. Planning and presenting an instructional program is straight forward--I do it all the time at my schools--but the shooting, editing and other post production work is a pretty big job. The Sandy Spey Clave video was shot back in May and I'm not sure that it is available yet.

I think you're right that a dvd with several noted casters presenting would be really good and probably pretty easy to organize, but what we need is someone with video production experience, equipment, and time to take care of that end of things. I'm guessing that there's someone on the clave or Forum who has this expertise.

Meantime I'm going to try and get more video up on the site now that we have the bandwidth issue addressed. I know I've said this in the past, but before we simply couldn't afford the bandwidth; now we might be able to--we'll have to see how it goes. I'm planning to revise my older spey articles and add video links into them for my subscribers so those will be available by subscription, but I'd like to put some of them up on the general site for everyone. None of this will happen until the spring, though.

 

[Grampa Spey]

Dana re need of good help for a possible new cd/video

Thanks Dana for all you have done for us.

Hopefully, someone on the board knows someone who could help you with what you would like to do. You posted:

"I think you're right that a dvd with several noted casters presenting would be really good and probably pretty easy to organize, but what we need is someone with video production experience, equipment, and time to take care of that end of things. I'm guessing that there's someone on the clave or Forum who has this expertise. "

Anyone out there who can help Dana with what would be a great project for all of us and future speyers.

Sage, Loop, CND are you reading this?