The Perry Poke Revisited

Here is a very good instructional video I found showing the Perry Poke. Thought I will share it here.

Pond Fishing with Two-handed Rod

Freshwater species caught with Sage ONE 4wt Switch rod

Recently my Thai fishing guide and long time friend told me that lots of his clients find it difficult to do fly fishing in stocked pond due to limited back room. Most of these ponds were not constructed with fly fishing in mind, so back cast room was never catered for in the pond construction. Most people find it challenging casting in such environment where raised platform, overhanging trees, bushes and man made structures cluttered the background. This prompted me to share my experience in this article.

Firstly, let me say up front that two hand rod is the most efficient tool for such fishing. It is precisely this type of environment that got me started on Spey casting in the first place. After a number of years of playing around with two hand rods ranging from 10.5 feet to 12.5 feet, I find switch rod around 11 ft best for the job since they are light and not too cumbersome. Two hand rods that are too long can be tiring and risk snagging on overhanging trees and other structures.

Next the line system is crucial. Too many people made the mistake of coming with Scandi type line or worst still, traditional long belly line that is ill suited for such fishing. From experience, I find short belly Skagit type line best for the job, with preference towards modern Skagit line with a good aggressive taper. The older generation of level Skagit line just does not have the taper to give good roll cast in very tight situation (small D-loop). If I have to recommend a good line, it would have to be the Wulff Ambush line or the RIO Skagit I-Flight. More recently, the RIO Scandi body (or Scandi versi-tip) that is more like a hybrid between Skagit and Scandi head may have also made it to the list.

Next comes the casting. There are 3 type of cast that I usually use in a pond, they are the wiggle roll cast, Perry poke and the static roll cast, depending on the condition. I use the wiggle roll cast whenever there is very little backroom and yet I want to get the distance. The first video here shows how the wiggle roll cast is performed.

When there is sufficient backroom for a Skagit cast, then Perry poke will give you the best distance. The video below shows how to perform a Perry poke while standing high on a platform.

If the situation is dire and you are really tight on back room, then the static roll cast will be your only choice. This is where a line like the Wulff Ambush or Skagit I-Flight really shines. Due to high concentration of mass near the tip of the rod, this line gives deep loading even with minimal D-loop and roll cast 50ft - 60ft easily. Below is a video showing the static roll cast.

** Tackle set up for these videos:  Sage ONE 4 wt Switch rod / Lamson Speedster 3.5 reel / Wulff Ambush line / 15ft RIO clear versileader + 10ft mono leader

Speed Poke - A speedier way to Poke

View this at Youtube for better quality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmF6A5CKeDk

Here is a cast that I rely extensively on when I was fishing in Maldives. The one week plus that I spent in Maldives this year flats fishing Spey style really brushed up all my strokes, especially my cack hand cast. I am really glad I put in enough hours practicing before the trip.

On the surface, this cast looks just like any normal Perry Poke but there are important differences. I call this cast the Speed Poke because all the crucial moves are speed-ed up with the objective of minimizing the sink time of the heavy fly. When Spey casting a heavy fly like the Clouser, the deeper the fly sink during the anchor set-up phase, the harder it is to yank the fly out from the water during forward cast. This will result in a what I would call a stuck anchor situation where the fly would not have enough energy to turn over properly.

When doing the Speed Poke, from the moment the fly lands in the water after the anchor placement move, everything has to move fast to minimize sink time. How I achieve this is by:
      1) starting the forward poke a split second before the fly touch down
      2) starting the rip just as the leading edge of the fly line touches water, before the main bulk of the fly line piles

In contrast, a normal Perry Poke would only start the forward poke motion after the fly touch down and the rip back would only commence after all the fly line has completely piled on the water ahead. These two adjustment to the poke makes this cast effective in handling heavy fast sinking fly.

The speed poke also makes the casting of intermediate sink Skagit head such as Skagit Extreme Intermediate and Ambush Clear Head, a lot more effective. Unlike floating heads that can sit on the water indefinitely, intermediate Skagit heads sinks during the forward pile. This results it more stick and makes it harder to rip and energize the D-loop. The Speed Poke solve this problem by only letting the line touch water momentarily but not long enough to become sticky. The video below emphasis this point more clearly.

Here is another video of the speed poke performed in saltwater flats fishing

The Snap Poke

I recently came up with this cast when I wanted a faster the way to do the poke so that my bulky heavy  fly does not get a chance to sink too deep before the forward delivery. The inspiration for this cast came from the Tongariro Roll Cast and the Snap-T. 

In lake fishing, some of the bulky baitfish pattern that I was using simply proved too challenging to extract from the water once they are sunk more than a few inches below the surface. Instead of using a heavier setup, I find that as long as I can get the fly to stay very near the surface before the forward cast, I will have no problem casting them.... hence a faster poke is born. The snap move allows the poke to be perform almost simultaneously with the pull back stroke. This cuts the time of the poke almost in half. The Snap Poke is typically performed after a roll cast to surface the fly.

Spey Casting Practice - Perry Poke

Here is a video I made to highlight some of the salient points of a Perry Poke (wrap style). In learning the Perry Poke/Wrap, I find it useful to remember the following points:
1) Dump the line in a smooth arc preferably no further than a rod length away from you. Dumping the line too far ahead of you may compromise your D-Loop formation.
2) Pay attention to where you fold the line during the dump as that would be your anchor/pivot point. As a rule of thumb, the joint where the sink tip (or versi-leader) meets the Skagit head would be where you want this fold to occur.
3) The sweep should be should be as smooth as possible transitioning into the forward cast. It is useful to think of the sweep and the forward cast as one continuous stroke with no pause in between. When done right, centrifugal force generated from the sweep will throw the fly line (skagit head) radially outwards, forming a D-Loop that swings round from your front to your rear.
3) Power the forward stroke when the top leg of the D-Loop just about line up with the targeted cast direction. The timing here is crucial to get a good cast. If you wait too long, the D-Loop would have swung round too far and tends to wrap around you in the forward delivery. If you exit the sweep too early, the D-Loop may not form properly and you would not get good loading.

To Wrap or not to Wrap

This is the best You-tube video footage I found so far showing the wrap style of Perry poke.

Maybe I should call it "Perry wrap" instead because there is hardly any poke in the move. This video footage is truly inspiring as it illustrate the power/line speed generated from centrifugal force in sweeping the rod around in a circular arc. 

Here is the another style of Perry poke where the emphasis is more on linear back and forth motion.

The line is dump right in front of the caster and the back cast is more like a Belgium cast (side cast)  where a loop is thrown backwards before commencing with the forward cast.

The main difference between the "Perry wrap" and "Perry poke" is that in the Wrap, the rod is kept continuously loaded (by centrifugal force) throughout the sweep; whereas in the linear style Perry poke, the rod will unload on the back cast to throw a D-loop backwards and quickly loads again in the forward cast the instance the anchor bites.

I find both style useful for various fishing situations. The Wrap style is more relax and graceful whereas the Poke is more compact and requires less room to execute. I will generally gravitate towards the Wrap unless space is limited and, or I have a fast sinking big fly that needs to be yanked out of the water ASAP, in which case the Poke can be executed faster before the fly sinks too deep.