Sharphooks
Well-Known Member
Yo Bird’...I have a closet full of double handed rods and I’ve fished them since the mid 70’d and to this day, I have never made a “Spey” cast and probably never will. My first graphite 16 footer was given to me by a guy named Jim Green. That’s the Jim Green rod in the picture above laying beside that THompson buck. He was a rod designer for Fenwick rods. They owned the plant on Bainbridge Island before Sage bought them out.
Both Jim and his wife were world record fly casters and both used an overhead cast. They got the massive distance in tournaments by shooting coils of line. I visited his house where he had a casting pond out in his back yard and he showed me his technique. His reels sat way up on the corks. I had just bought a 14 foot bamboo “Sharpes” rod when I visited my folks who lived in London at the time—-the rod was insanely heavy and I never like the short butt section relative to the placement of the reel. When I saw Jim’s technique coupled with the way he was designing his double-handers (just for friends; they never saw a commercial outlet) I immediately knew that’s how I wanted to pursue my steelhead fly habit. Why?
Back in those days I never had a steady job—I was a river bum; I’d work for a few months in the late winter and spring then go hang on the Skeena and THompson until ice shut those rivers down. And with that amount of fishing I immediately saw how overhead casting had major advantages over “Spey” casting. First and foremost, it didn’t beat the crap out of your shoulders and elbows the way forming that infamous “D” loop does. Have you ever got on a Spey forum and heard the complaints about shoulder and back pain from those guys? Some guys can’t get on the river without cortisone shots. Over-head casting doesn’t beat you up like that if you know how to form and shoot your coiled loops. With a long rod, it’s one, maybe two false casts and a 90 footer is easily doable. Give me 3 false casts with the right line and I’m good for a 110 footer....more then enough distance for most rivers.
Jim Green just gave me blanks so I built up all my own rods. But I monkeyed the way I saw how he’d done up his prototypes——at least 1 1/2 feet of cork behind the reel seat as compared to say, 6” on a Spey rod. So that instantly turns any double handed rod into a single handed rod—-you lay that strip of cork down your forearm and you instantly get major leverage. And it balances the big Hardy reels I use just about right....when the reel sits way back towards the butt of the rod like a normal “Spey” configuration, there’s zero balance—-it’s a heavy stick
The rod in the picture above is the only “off the rack” fly rod I own—-it’s a 12’ 6” foot Sage One, a fantastic powerhouse of a rod and light as a feather. The first thing I did after buying that rod was to take a Dremel and a cutting disc and cut off the reel-seat. Then I added approx 8” more corks where the reel seat used to be, then glued in another reel seat and finally, more corks for the foregrip. I suppose that rod was originally designed for “Spey” casting but now it is an absolutely Rock Star of a single-hander—-I lay that cork up against my forearm and I literally can fish day after day after day, make monster casts, and feel like I’m still 18 years old. My only regret with that Sage One is it’s such a fantastic rod I no longer want to fish my 14 and 16 foot Jim Green rods which are definitely heavier.
So there’s the fatigue thing that’s taken care of, the beating up of rotator cuffs you don’t get like the Spey guys do and last but not least, you’re not detonating the freaking water trying to make that goofy “D” loop the way the Spey guys do.
I saw a guy one day on the THompson, a guy well known in the Spey world for designing and marketing a whole bracket of “Spey” lines , who was absolutely destroying a pool when he stripped his D loop off the water. It was really sad to see that spectacle because the spot he was fishing usually had fish holding no more then 10 - 30 feet from the beach. I just watched in amazement as he beat the water to a froth with his cool new “Spey” technique. No doubt any fish in that spot was now holding 150 feet out in the center of the river. To this day, if I see a Spey guy in a river, I find another spot because of all that disruption going on in the water
So, maybe a long-winded reason why I design my rods that way. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’ve been pounding out fly lines for over 55 years now and you won’t hear me whine about the pain and suffering in my shoulders and arms the way the middle aged Spey guys do.
I also designed my own reel seats so they would fit the longer feet of the antique Hardy reels I use. I cringe when I hear about guys grinding off the feet of antique reels to fit their off-the-rack rods...no reason to do that!
Both Jim and his wife were world record fly casters and both used an overhead cast. They got the massive distance in tournaments by shooting coils of line. I visited his house where he had a casting pond out in his back yard and he showed me his technique. His reels sat way up on the corks. I had just bought a 14 foot bamboo “Sharpes” rod when I visited my folks who lived in London at the time—-the rod was insanely heavy and I never like the short butt section relative to the placement of the reel. When I saw Jim’s technique coupled with the way he was designing his double-handers (just for friends; they never saw a commercial outlet) I immediately knew that’s how I wanted to pursue my steelhead fly habit. Why?
Back in those days I never had a steady job—I was a river bum; I’d work for a few months in the late winter and spring then go hang on the Skeena and THompson until ice shut those rivers down. And with that amount of fishing I immediately saw how overhead casting had major advantages over “Spey” casting. First and foremost, it didn’t beat the crap out of your shoulders and elbows the way forming that infamous “D” loop does. Have you ever got on a Spey forum and heard the complaints about shoulder and back pain from those guys? Some guys can’t get on the river without cortisone shots. Over-head casting doesn’t beat you up like that if you know how to form and shoot your coiled loops. With a long rod, it’s one, maybe two false casts and a 90 footer is easily doable. Give me 3 false casts with the right line and I’m good for a 110 footer....more then enough distance for most rivers.
Jim Green just gave me blanks so I built up all my own rods. But I monkeyed the way I saw how he’d done up his prototypes——at least 1 1/2 feet of cork behind the reel seat as compared to say, 6” on a Spey rod. So that instantly turns any double handed rod into a single handed rod—-you lay that strip of cork down your forearm and you instantly get major leverage. And it balances the big Hardy reels I use just about right....when the reel sits way back towards the butt of the rod like a normal “Spey” configuration, there’s zero balance—-it’s a heavy stick
The rod in the picture above is the only “off the rack” fly rod I own—-it’s a 12’ 6” foot Sage One, a fantastic powerhouse of a rod and light as a feather. The first thing I did after buying that rod was to take a Dremel and a cutting disc and cut off the reel-seat. Then I added approx 8” more corks where the reel seat used to be, then glued in another reel seat and finally, more corks for the foregrip. I suppose that rod was originally designed for “Spey” casting but now it is an absolutely Rock Star of a single-hander—-I lay that cork up against my forearm and I literally can fish day after day after day, make monster casts, and feel like I’m still 18 years old. My only regret with that Sage One is it’s such a fantastic rod I no longer want to fish my 14 and 16 foot Jim Green rods which are definitely heavier.
So there’s the fatigue thing that’s taken care of, the beating up of rotator cuffs you don’t get like the Spey guys do and last but not least, you’re not detonating the freaking water trying to make that goofy “D” loop the way the Spey guys do.
I saw a guy one day on the THompson, a guy well known in the Spey world for designing and marketing a whole bracket of “Spey” lines , who was absolutely destroying a pool when he stripped his D loop off the water. It was really sad to see that spectacle because the spot he was fishing usually had fish holding no more then 10 - 30 feet from the beach. I just watched in amazement as he beat the water to a froth with his cool new “Spey” technique. No doubt any fish in that spot was now holding 150 feet out in the center of the river. To this day, if I see a Spey guy in a river, I find another spot because of all that disruption going on in the water
So, maybe a long-winded reason why I design my rods that way. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’ve been pounding out fly lines for over 55 years now and you won’t hear me whine about the pain and suffering in my shoulders and arms the way the middle aged Spey guys do.
I also designed my own reel seats so they would fit the longer feet of the antique Hardy reels I use. I cringe when I hear about guys grinding off the feet of antique reels to fit their off-the-rack rods...no reason to do that!
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