Anchors for Snake Rolls

[Paul Arden]

Ah - and another point - there is very little time to make the shot. Often only a second. Mostly I let the backcast fully straighten into a Belgian Cast.

I always liked a teaching explanation I learned from the Late Henry Lowe who prepped me for my Stanic Exams - as well as APGAI - basically it’s all about force application and there is only one cast. Take a roll add some force and you have a Jump Roll. Add some more force and you have a Belgian Cast. Straighten up and you have an overhead cast. Add some curve sweep to the jump roll and you have a Single Spey.

It also spins nicely to Way Yin’s teaching of the Jump Roll by using an underpowered Belgian Cast.

Here in Malaysia I have had to solve a problem. Namely I don’t know exactly where or when the fish will appear and I have 1 second to make the shot. I start with usually 2m of line outside the tip which gives me a reach of 10ft Leader plus 6 feet line plus 9ft rod plus 3 feet arm reach = 28ft. I reach mend for closer shots. For all free-rising shots I have one shot, no false casting. This means I slip and shoot line at every point I can in the stroke/s. This ultimately means I either have no contact with the line hand, slipping line under tension with the line hand and hauling the line. What amazes me is actually just how little contact we need to make to the line during all strokes to get the job done. It’s almost like micro-second contact points, even during the stroke. You can slip a lot of line during the casting stroke if you are slipping line. (Unfortunately our definitions of casting stroke don’t fit what I’m doing - ie you are not applying force to the line when you are slipping even if it is during the “casting stroke”!).

I will try to make some videos but I think if you play around with the problem you’ll arrive at the same solution. It is actually quite profound - to me anyway - how little contact time we need to make at the line hand to achieve the cast.

I also found it very interesting with regards anchors in that while the anchor stabilises the D-loop and therefore makes the cast more efficient and somewhat easier, all Spey casts can be aerielised. Aerielising the Double Spey, Snake Roll Single Spey etc actually work just fine, are more delicate and, if distance is not your main requirement work, quite fine for fishing purposes.

I’ll make a video on the Snap Z because I actually believe that this spawned from something I was doing in 2003 but copied wrong. The Snap should be aerielised and it’s actually a Snap reverse 0. There is still an anchor but the anchor folds quite differently.

Have you ever come across a cast called the “Kick Spey”? it’s a horizontal Snap to direct the anchor. I learned this from Vic Knight in ‘96.

Even more remarkable to me, is that when you make the Aerielised Snap Single Spey that I use, it is exactly the same cast as when you snap the Snake Roll, only the angle changes are reversed. I have this Spey Family Tree in my head where all the branches rejoin with this cast.

I’m not a fan of the trend of the last 15 years to invent a new Spey cast every time that the lift of modified in some way. I think that this is confusing for students. I’m not too keen on waterborne and airborne either. I teach/think in upstream/downstream wind and have two sub-sets in each; Single Spey, Snap T and Double Spey and Snake Roll. That’s the basis of my tree - in other words I’ve lumped according to wind direction as opposed to the tackle advantages derived from how the anchor is formed.

I’ll try to make a video of this Snap Z misunderstanding. It adds a bit of funk to Spey casting. But it’s Piffen’s last few days and he has still to catch a fish!

Cheers, Paul