What is Scandi casting?
Due to the steep banks commonly found on Scandinavian salmon rivers, scandi style lines were designed for casting in tight quarters. They were also designed with long front tapers to allow for a more gentle presentation as to not spook wary salmon in the gin-clear waters of Scandinavia.
What is a Skagit tip?
A Skagit Head with a sinking tip attached was designed and built to provide extra weight to sink the fly towards the bottom of moderately fast moving water while using a very compact casting stroke to avoid riverbank obstructions on wild rain-forest rivers. A line tip is just and extension of the shooting head.
What is the difference between switch and Spey casting?
Switch rods are better suited for nymphing than spey rods because of their shorter length and lighter weight makes them easier to stack mend line or highstick line. When swinging flies, spey rods can manage more line on the water because of their longer length.
Do you need a tip on a Skagit head?
No Skagit Shooting head casts smoothly without a tip attached. A Skagit Head with a sinking tip attached was designed and built to provide extra weight to sink the fly towards the bottom of moderately fast moving water while using a very compact casting stroke to avoid riverbank obstructions on wild rain-forest rivers.
How do you pick a Skagit head?
A general rule is that a Skagit head should weigh about twice as many grains per foot as the sinking tip that is attached to it. So, if your rod is rated for an 8/9 head (570-600 grains at 23′ = 25-27 grains per foot) it will handle T-14.
Why use a shooting head fly line?
The one main advantage of the shooting head is longer casting distance with smaller or the same effort. This is the single most important reason why people will choose a shooting head over any other type of line. There are other advantages, but true, in most cases you do cast longer with a shooting head setup.
Do Skagit heads float?
A floating Skagit head will stay on the surface unless a sinking tip or weighted fly pulls it under.
What is a Skagit cast?
Skagit Casting is a relatively new way to spey cast. It was developed in the Pacific Northwest where anglers needed to cast heavy flies on heavy sinking lines. Traditional spey lines just did not have the right tapers and mass to cast such heavy setups.
Who invented Skagit casting?
The term “Skagit Line” is attributed to Ed Ward, who was a fly fishing guide on the Skagit River in Northern Washington. On the Spey Pages discussion group, he was describing a new form of fishing with two-hand rods for winter steelhead. He called it Spey casting.