[TnTom]

Havent been flyfishing in years but am going tomrrow. Im in great smallmounth waters and its time to get busy.
Ive built 3 rods 1 casting and 2 spinning and couldnt imagine ever buying one again. Next is fly.
Also look in rodbuilders.com its forum is an endless source of info that answers any question that can come up. Also chek out the magazine. the articles are supurb and well researched.
Also look into the the annual meet in NC Its a huge rodbuilding get togeather that you will never miss again after you make the first one.
Tom

[Frank Whiton]

Hi Tom,

Welcome to the forum. You are in some good fly fishing water in central and eastern Tennessee. Glad to have you as a member on the forum.

Frank

[TnTom]

Thanks Frank,
I appreciate the welcome. I have a question I'm sure you might be able to help me with.
About 99% of my fishing is for bass and I'v come to spend most of the time wading creeks though I do use my canoe frequently and my have it in tow for more time than I spend in it.
As i mentioned I haven't tried a fly rod in years and really never was very much in what i thought was good fly fishing waters.(Northern Illinois)
Now when spinning or casting here in Tn I use a 6' medium fast.
I haven't built a fly rod but would like to. Ive been casting in my back yard with an 8' something or other (old fly rod I had) and find I can manage it ok. It really feels like it doesnt have much backbone.
What are fly rods in the 7' sort of fast action class feel like? Im trying to decide on a blank that i can use in tight quarters using mostly wet flies or the likes of.
I put my fly reel on one of my spinning rods just to get an idea and I think I like it. I treated it like a fly rod (cast it) and got about the same distance, 25; -30' or so.
Im thinking a long whipy type of fly rod in the creek could get to be in the way. I've become pretty good at getting worms, frogs and the likes of into some pretty tight spots with my casting and spinning gear. Picture yourself off the tree covered bank a few feet from the brush fishing to the other side about 20' away and wanting your "fly" or worm under some overhanging roots.
Does this sound like something you do with a fly rod? Do you need as much room behind you as you have in front of you? Would a shorter rod help? Im sure casting skill will really become even more of a challenge...how does the rod length and action play into it with a fly rod?

Usually I associate fly fishing with wide open spaces. Im sure thats not always the case but I dont see much of that.
These pics are areas I fish a lot. I know its really asking a lot but if it were you wading what length rod would you be most comfortable with. Rod weight and that type of info would really help.










Thanks again
Tom

[Nooksack Mac]

Tom,

There seem to be two schools of thought on ideal small stream fly rod length. Some like long rods, since they see themselves as dapping flies, rather than casting them conventionally. Most of us like a short rod, and get in the habit of looking over our shoulders to identify lurking tree limbs before every cast. A stream like that little beauty in your photos can be covered with any rod from about six feet and up. There's no perfect choice. In one place, an 8-footer would be perfect. Take a few steps, change your distance from the surrounding shrubbery, and you wish you had a 6-footer. FWIW, my favorite small stream rod is a 7 1/2-footer.

Recently, spey fishermen have shown us that any of the standard half-dozen or so spey casts are equally useable with single-hand fly rods. That's esp. valuable for small-stream anglers, because spey casts eliminate the need for a conventional backcast. All spey casts are water-anchored. From the end of your previous cast, you use one or the other spey casts to bring the fly back up to the water near you. With a short line, you probably need only point your rod tip upstream. Then you make what's called a D-loop backcast, because it momentarily looks like a capital D, leaving the fly on the water. Then just stroke the rod forward in the intended direction and stop the tip fairly high. The line and fly will zip out as easy as breathing. With their long two-handed rods, spey casters routinely make 60-80-foot casts, and often much longer. At typical small-stream distances, it's much easier. The D-loop goes only a few feet behind you.

[TnTom]

I found a cheap SouthBend 4-5 wt 6 1/2' on Ebay just to get a feel for a short length rod and actually have been using it a lot in the last few weeks. Like you mentioned in the right spot an 8' would be the berries and I'll probably build a 7' maybe 7 1/2.

Im trying to find a good video that shows some of the casting techniques especially the casting method you explained. I think I'll have to break down and get in the creek with an instructor for a day.

I've been tying some streamers and closure minnows and should get to try them out this weekend.

Thanks for all great info. Would really like to see the "D" cast in action. Would you know of a video that shows it?

[Nooksack Mac]

Tom, any of the dozen or so videos available on conventional (2-handed) spey casting would make it a lot clearer. There's a DVD currently on eBay for $29.95: "Single-Handed Fly Rod Casting Using Spey Casting Techniques" by Jeff Putnam; it's also available in HD DVD and Blu-Ray DVD. I haven't watched that one myself.

To make it clearer - I hope - I'll describe the double spey cast, the one I mostly use when spey casting. Let's assume that you're right-handed, and that you're standing on one side of a stream flowing down from your left side to your right side as you face across stream. (Of course, you can cast across at various angles.)

Your line and fly drifted downstream after your previous cast, and is now dangling downcurrent from you. You have a few yards of open space behind you and overhead. You have 20-30 feet of line and leader out. First, point your right arm downstream; let the current pull the line tight. Second, swing your rod overhead, a little in front of your head and body, and point it upstream. The fly should land a rod-length or so from you, slightly downstream of you. Third, swing the rod in an arc around in front of you, dropping the rod tip to roughly chest height. Continue the swing around your right side and behind your right shoulder, raising the rod tip slightly. The fly stays on the water as you momentarily throw the line behind you in a D-loop. Do this smoothly, with just enough energy to flex the rod backward slightly. Fourth, stroke the rod forward, stopping the rod fairly high. Your fly goes across stream, where you want it.

Whether casting quartering upstream, straight across, or quartering downstream, make the D-loop in the opposite direction, 180 degrees from your intended cast direction.

Spey casting is so easy that we can swing those long, heavy spey rods, lines and reels with all-day comfort, because we're not flailing them through multiple backcasts. Compared to overhead casting, your fly spends much less time in the air, much more time on the water, where the fish are.

By the way, most of us are familiar with the old roll cast, which is almost a spey cast. The roll cast is static, though. We let the line hang as a dead weight, then muscle the rod forward. Real spey casts load energy into the rod during the D-loop (just as an overhead backcast does), then release the energy during the forward cast, so that the rod does a lot of the work for us.