Skagit Spey Casting with Ed Ward

Here are two very good YouTube videos of Ed Ward, the Jedi master of Skagit casting, demonstrating and explaining the art. This is a must watch for those who are interested in Skagit casting as it is very enlightening. It covers the history and development of Skagit casting briefly and goes on to demonstrate the finer points of Skagit casting and how it differs from other form of Spey casting.

In this video Ed talks about water tension being the friend of a Skagit caster and stressed on getting lots of line on the water (full contact) and waiting for the line motion to stop before moving on the next stage of the cast. While this is true for floating Skagit head, my experience with intermediate sink Skagit head (Wulff Ambush Clear Head & SA Skagit Extreme Intermediate) however tells me that water tension can sometimes become too "friendly". Intermediate sink head can sit too low if left too long in the water column and in this case, full and prolong water contact becomes a hindrance. Once the water surface developed too much grip on the fly line, energy will be sapped from the cast when sweeping to form the D-Loop and the cast will not go well. Cast that performs well for intermediate Skagit head are those that the line only sit on the water surface briefly. For that reason, I often turn to the Speed Poke when using intermediate line.

Skagit Spey Casting - Wiggle C-Spey / Snap-T

Here is a novel cast I invented quite by accident recently. Ever since inventing the Wiggle Roll Cast , I have been using it quite extensively in my fishing especially with full intermediate Skagit head. In still water fishing, intermediate heads are not easy to roll cast to the surface unless you strip in at least half the head. The Wiggle Roll Cast conveniently did away with that and allowed me to surface the head with just one roll.

Recently, I have been experimenting to incorporate the wiggle into the Snap-T. I had some success  but was not happy with how far in the anchor was being positioned to my right. Then quite by accident, I did a cack hand wiggle followed by a forehand C-Spey and everything fell nicely into place. The anchor was positioned nicely (front right) and the Perry Poke that followed straightened and aligned the fly and leader in the right direction for the final delivery.

With this cast, I can now efficiently re-position my anchor to my right without having to do multiple  roll cast or cack hand roll cast. With one continuous swoop the anchor is re-positioned correctly and the cast fires off sweet. I am a happy camper.

In this video, I was casting with my new Sage ONE 4wt switch rod and a 350 grain Wulff Ambush line with 15ft clear versi-leader. For those who are interested, the Sage ONE 4 wt Switch rod cast well with 300 grain and 350 grain Skagit head. My preference goes to 350 grain. This rod cast smooth and gives wicked distance. I particularly enjoy the stiffer tip that seems to turn everything over very positively.