My knowledge and understanding of Trout Spey improved dramatically by watching videos by Rio’s Simon Gawesworth. His rule of three – a two handed rod should be three line weights lower than a single handed rod, and his rule of two – that the fish caught should be twice the weight of the rod, greatly helped my understanding.
The video that really made the most difference to my knowledge was the Ashland Fly Shops video of Simon Gawesworth.
Previously I had learned a lot from the old Rio Spey DVD, though never enough to be really confident with my cast. I’d also learned a huge amount from the Rio How To videos, but the Ashland video put it all together in one place.
Applying these rules to the Tukituki when I am fishing the evening rise means finding a two weight Spey. My dry fly rod is a 5wt Scott Radian, so the Spey rod I want to match this a two weight.
Finding a two weight spey limits my options. I toyed with the idea of going for a three weight Winston Micro Spey, because I like the ease of casting my 5 wt, but I really wanted to follow the rules, especially since it is extremely rare to catch fish over 4lb on the evening rise in the Tuki. Many of the fish are under 2lb, so a 2 weight will not be overmatched by the fish I am fishing to.
Realistically there was only one Trout Spey rod I seriously considered. There is not a huge availability of Spey rods in New Zealand, and I didn’t really want to pay duty and freight to buy a brand I didn’t know. With the Sage One Trout Spey being discontinued the choice was the Trout Spey HD 10ft 9in 2wt.
I had some concern about going down to a two weight, but these concerns were completely overcome by posting on facebook and finding another New Zealand angler, X, who reckoned his Sage One Trout Spey two weight was his favourite rod and he used it all the time.
My other concern was the description of the Sage Trout Spey HD as a fast action rod. Many years ago there was a season on the Tuki where there was a lot of wind, and the fish were rising once then going down. I really struggled with the dry fly, so changed to swinging two weighted #16 hare & coppers. My ultra fast action Sage TCR missed a lot of takes. I swapped to a much more sedate action Sage SP after testing my Scott G Series and discovering the G Series didn’t cast far enough without false casts. The SP resulted in a lot more hook ups than the TCR, and while it did not have the distance the TCR had, the distance it cast without false casting was more than adequate.
The message from the Trout Spey Facebook group was the Sage One Trout Spey was not really all that fast, and there are some interesting videos on how to give a little bit of slack to help turn takes into hook ups.
To match the rod I considered buying a Sage Trout Spey reel, but I really like the Waterworks Force Reels I have. These are beautiful, functional reels that I have used for about 15 years, with their superb drag system’s low start up inertia saving many fish that surge when there is a lot of line out.
Trout Spey | Trout Spey Background | Trout Spey Gear | Trout Spey Lines | Trout Spey Flies I Proven Emergers | Trout Spey Flies II – Wee Wets & Soft Hackles |Trout Spey Flies III Traditional Streamers | Trout Spey Flies IV – Fly Durability |Trout Spey Casts | Understanding Spey Casting