Nick Moore | Saturday, 26 August 2023
I’ve been rather busy with work and personal projects over the last couple of months, most notably, the Dalek. I had my Dalek shoulders signed by most of the old Dr Who cast, and I don’t particularly want to take this out anymore as it’s a nice display piece, so I have been working on a new set of shoulders, neck bin and neck ring. Quite a lot of work!
Casting wise, I haven’t been doing much overhead distance, although I was given a very long #7 75’ double taper to use as a shooting head. This was no small feat, as it requires a 91’ carry as a minimum, assuming a 9’ rod etc. It’s not a practical fishing shooting head, it’s challenging even for a competition caster! I have actually been doing a lot of long distance speys on the water, as the club fishing hasn’t been very good. Recently, I’ve been working on my 90 degree single spey with the MED5, which is quite a challenge to get the anchor in a perfect optimum position. Why is this? Well, the head is ±70’, and that’s a lot of line to manoeuvre on a 9’ rod!
Now, you can spey cast any line, but spey tapers are shaped in a specific way to make spey casting much easier. Spey tapers feature a very long front taper, short belly and a short rear taper. In reality, they are an integrated shooting head with a light tip and a heavy back section. Why is this? Well, the only part you propel forward in a spey cast is from the apex of the V loop to the rod tip (ok, not quite, but it’s close enough) therefore, you want to maximise the momentum of this part in order of it to pull the rest of the line out of the water (the anchor)
Speys are very fun and highly practical, not only for rivers, but for still waters, which is where I spend the majority of my time fishing. Give them a try
Tight lines
