Rio’s dvd on modern speycasting is an instructional dvd, and as such, one of the best that I’ve seen. Running for more than 3 hours and on three discs, it’s not one you watch in a hurry. In fact, the movie is best if you split it into two or three.

The Basics: The movie kicks off with the very basics, putting the rod together and taping the ferrules, something most double-hand casters do for those of you that might wonder. After an introduction by Jim Vincent, Simon goes over the basics of grip, stance and the basic principles of speycasting, where he introduces the terms related to this style of casting. If you ever wondered how Simon looks in a shirt and tie, get this dvd.

A very thorough dvd: On the actual, on-the-water casting Simon and the other casters, do a very thorough job on explaining what leads to a good speycasts covering the usual faults and even getting in to different anchor-groups. Basically, every speycast imaginable is covered in the movie. For each cast, the correct execution is shown, advanced variations, typical faults and most for most casts, there’s a biokinetic study for the real geeks. The biokinetics study visualises the arm and body movement as stick-men, and it’s a valuable addition to the understanding of the casts.

The Casts: As mentioned earlier, the movie is very thorough and Single Spey, Double Spey, Switch cast and Roll cast, and also the modern spey casts such as the Snake Roll, Circle Spey, Snap T, Snap Z, Wombat cast, Underhand cast, Spiral Spey, Spiral Double Spey, Jelly Roll, Perry Poke and Skagit casting including many variations including a chapter on singlehand Speycasting are all covered in the movie.

Terms: If you have read Simon Gawesworth’s book, “Spey Casting”, you’ll find that the terms used in the book to describe elements of the cast, faults etc. are all used in the dvd as well.

A great dvd: This is a fantastic movie and all casters, beginners, intermediates and advanced as well as instructors will learn a lot from this movie. As an instructor, I have personally picked of lots of little tips and tricks as well as good terms for describing the Spey cast.

Facts:
Rio's Modern Speycasting w/ Simon Gawesworth and guests George Cook, Mike McCune, Scott O’Donnell, Dana Sturn and Ed Ward.
Duration: 4 hours/3 discs.
Produced by Rio Products and available through Rio stockists.
Check out the Rio website for more info on the dvd.