Efficient Spey Casting: Part 3 - Let's take a look at Spey casting Skagit heads and their D-Loops

Over the past ten years or so, the trend in Skagit heads is for them to get shorter and shorter.

Spey casters who were comfortable with the longer heads sometimes had trouble adjusting to the shorter ones. Like most things for some people there's a tipping point where these heads can be too short unless they change how they cast them. When these really short Skagit heads first appeared on the market, everyone was recommending them online and people were buying them. Then they were coming to me for instruction because they couldn't cast them.

Here's an overview of the differences in the D-Loops between longer and shorter Skagit heads along with the impact these differences have on our casting.

The next video will contain clips of casting heads of various lengths that illustrate the things we need to know to cast these lines well.

[thatcherbeaty]

Another superb analysis. Your comments about the distribution of the loop mass and anchor placement are especially helpful for me. Thanks! I look forward to your upcoming videos.

[gaypudding]

I got these 4 meter Skagit heads for taimen fishing on a 11' switch rod and anchor placement needs to be literally right next to me. But they cast massive flies far if you sweep slow and low.

On recordings I've noticed that they actually produce more of a V-loop on a good cast. They basically straighten out completely at the start of the forward cast and offer 100 percent of their mass to load the rod.

[laxberndt]

Hello Peter. You are talking about D-loop and V-loop. Personally, I always use V-loop. I create it by having the rod tip close to the surface of the water and high speed on the line in the back cast.

[NikLefou]

Hi!, this analisys should help me a lot, and maybe next video more help. I´ve started using these technics on a 1 hand 4wt rod with a 10foot micro skagit head(175gr), this past weekend tried to make a good cast but the anchor placement is driving me mad!, the best results I was able to get was on a continuos moving head before the cast, but It was looking more of a rollcast than a dloop cast. can you give me any advice on this?

[Kelberi]

In general shorter heads can be cast efficiently with a lower rod angle, which allows the fly and leader to "anchor-skip" for an explosive cast.

[terryc]

I’ve been looking for info on forming a V loop. Not much out there. What do you do to change a D loop to a V loop.

[laxberndt]

Tack igen Peter för en överskådlig film om korta Skagitlinor. kanske du skall prata om hur långa spetsar man bör använda till dessa korta linor. En regel jag själv använder när det gäller vikten på spetsen är 1/3 av boody vikt.

[hankvana]

Peter, with nobody around to show me (I'm in a warm water fishery so it's bass and pike) and I'm trying to figure out all this spey stuff from watching videos. I'm an experienced over-hand caster and wanted a longer rod for casting 6" pike flies. I hedged my bets and bought a 6 wt, 11.5 ft switch-rod, a Rio "Switch Chucker" line (420 gr, 25 ft head) and some sink-tips figuring I could try spey casting and fall back to over-hand casting if that didn't work out. Could you comment on the equipment and its applications. If not suited to (attempting) spey casting, what line would you recommend? Thanks!