overhead casting

[salmonfly]

How many people here use the overhead cast?

[salar76]

rarely with a double hander. although sometimes i find it useful for certain wind conditions and/or fishing off high cliffs!

[fishingd0]

Where I fish on the River Ness, it is often the case that Im fishing off a boat. when I am, I normally use an over head cast. I find it less work and it dosn't move the boat about as much as a spey cast.

[charlieh]

I use the overhead cast when fishing on very flat water where there is a danger of disturbing the fish. Not only does no anchor mean no risk of splashing, as Graham says, but also an overhead cast allows you to use a lighter line than is needed to load a rod with a spey cast. When you want to be stealthy, dropping one or two line sizes is quite helpful, in my view.

As salar76 says, there are a few places that cannot be fished properly with a spey cast. The Dam on the Beauly is one such.

[williegunn]

charlieh said:

As salar76 says, there are a few places that cannot be fished properly with a spey cast. The Dam on the Beauly is one such.

Remind me again Charlie of the day we shared a rod on the Beauly, the Speycasy seemed to be effective, more effective than your overhead casts at any rate.

[charlieh]

As I recall, I hooked two fish to your one. That seems about as it should have been, as you were unable to fish half of that particular pool owing to the deficiencies of your casting technique.

The fact that both of my fish came off, while you landed yours, had more to do with the equipment we were using than the manner in which the fly was placed in front of the fish. I still haven't forgiven you for that dodgy hook.

[williegunn]

Never minds all the ifs and buts just cut to the facts
just how many fish did you land? I landed 1

[charlieh]

williegunn said:

I landed 1

Didn't your mother teach you that it's not nice to gloat?

Anyway, I answered your question:

charlieh said:

both of my fish came off

Now shall we talk about hooks?

[Fruin]

When overhead casting, how much of a spey profile line should you be stripping in. To get the correct weight for the rod, assuming the rod and spey line are matched, it should probably be slightly less than half the belly to avoid overloading the rod - yes? no?

[elwyman]

fruin said:

When overhead casting, how much of a spey profile line should you be stripping in. To get the correct weight for the rod, assuming the rod and spey line are matched, it should probably be slightly less than half the belly to avoid overloading the rod - yes? no?

The only way to find out is by experiment - try casting with different lengths of belly pulled in to find the best length.

If your line is well matched to your rod for speycasting, you should find between 1/2 to 1 rod length of line belly inside the tip ring will be ok.

[Fruin]

Thanks Elwyman. I just always feel that the rod must be overloaded when overhead casting with a spey profile that is designed to be cast in a d loop, where the full weight of line is not loading the rod on the backcast.

[tyneflyfisha]

Sorry for the late post folks ...I am new here ....but I'm intrigued by this, as I invariably cast overhead to fish lying say less than 5 yds away or when lengthening line when entering the neck of a shallow pool prior to making a spey cast. Seems to be a lot of effort to roll or speycast a very short line when a simple lift and gentle nudge will do ?

[rennie]

Interesting,or at least some of it.Only usually overhead with a shooting head or when fishing a short line,however on the Dee this year faced with low water and not many fish(actually only saw any in the Hut pool at Sluie where we were fishing)my thoughts were not to scare what was there so I decided to use an 8/9 line and overhead cast without wading.Using an Accelerator on my 16ft 7/9 # Merlin I stripped in the running line so the belly was in the tip ring,lifted the line clear of the surface,swung the rod tip to point at my target,lifted into the back cast and performed the final delivery.Have to say it was sweet as a nut and gentle as you like.Of course bank side obstructions wernt a problem wind was a little awkward at times.Terminal side of things was a size 10 to 14 double, intermediate or slow sink 10ft poly-tip and 6 ish ft of flurocarbon.Actually surprised myself usually prefer a single/double/hybrid spey cast was probably getting in the region of mid 30yds or so about my limit really,in all honesty the out fit helped a lot when I tried the same antics on a 13ft Norway and 8/9# Mid Spey wasnt quite as succsessful.Will stick with Spey Thrashing but have opened up my mind to other solutions,look forward to casting a wet2 and brass tube overhead in the Black Strand this autumn,or maybe not.By the way as with all my floaters the Accelerator had received a good going over with "Armourall",helps with the lift off the surface dontcha know. Pedro,the overhead king(perhaps).

[stoater]

Spey casting is a satisfying, and effective way of casting the salmon fly. Especially in confined areas- I mean when trees etc. are behind you. But, and it's a big but, it is almost always a cast that creates significantly more water disturbance than a well planned overhead cast. On a river, in a lot of conditions, this may not disturb our chances with salmon. But it does irritate when on a double-bank, tree-less beat - on a still summer evening- your opposite angler insists on whipping and a thrashin' , as if there is no quieter way of presenting his size 14 low-water double.
Having said that I envy those who are really good spey casting practitioners, it can look great.

[tyneflyfisha]

I spent a couple of hours today on my local river and once again a very succesful rod took the only salmon of the day. I'd welcome your opinions on this as this person can efficiently throw a long and accurate line but never worries about surface disturbance or deep wading. Frequently the rod in question is the only one who catches fish, whilst very good casters and fisherman are also fishing . I have seen instances where you can "provoke " a take through literally dropping the fly on the fish & it has set me thinking. I would normally always adopt the falkus style of minimum disturbance but maybe I have got it all wrong......? This happens too often to be a fluke.

[tyneflyfisha]

I once spent a very interesting half hour drinking coffee with Jurij Shumakov RIP. A top bloke and thinking mans fly fisherman. He told me that he designed the shumakov tubes so that they would instantly start fishing when cast into the white water at the head of waterfalls etc.
Same principle as Falkus dee nymph , Sawyers rising nymph, the beauly belly etc . (This also worked a treat on the Tay with tiny copper tubes).

[madkeen]

Any lure landed on a salmon nose will often provoke a response and I wouldnt worry too much about disturbance,seen my mate take upteen salmon with a F-18(like something you would trawl for tuna)rapala landed right on their nose