reviews

Spey Casting

Reviewed by Scott Richmond

Spey Casting, by Simon Gawesworth; forward by Tom McGuane. Published by Stackpole Books. 296 pages in a 8.5 by 11 inch format. Hard cover, with 212 color photos and 66 drawings. $49.95. Available in fly shops, at www.stackpolebooks.com, or at www.amazon.com.

hat's the best way to learn to cast a fly rod? Personal instruction? Video tape? Book?

The answer is "all of the above."

An instructor standing at your elbow can demonstrate how to do it right; he or she can see the errors you're making and offer on-the-spot correction. A video gives a visual reference that you can imitate. And a book is something that you can go back to again and again for fine details that you might miss in a video or forget from personal instruction.

Does the Book Live Up to the Man?

For those learning to spey cast, or who want to improve their casting, one of the best founts of wisdom is Simon Gawesworth. He is a regular at outdoor shows and is a featured expert at Mark Bachman's mammoth Spey Clave every spring. Simon works at Rio Products and is a major contributor to the design of the fly lines that dominate the spey casting world. He's also consulted on the design of some very successful two-handed rods.

In person, Simon Gawesworth is an excellent and logical teacher. But it takes more than that to make a good casting book. Other things need to be there: sound writing, clear photos and graphics, and an orderly progression of information. Thankfully, all of these are present in Spey Casting.

From Basic Principles to Snake Rolls

Gawesworth starts with the basics and uses them as building blocks into the bread-and-butter casts, then moves on to advanced casts. The writing is clear and consice, and at the end of each chapter there is a section on things that can go wrong and how to correct them. This is extraordinarily useful information. Too many casting books just tell you what to do, but don't tell you about the mistakes, how to recognize them, and how to correct them.

Gawesworth has a knack for telling you what you need to hear--no more, no less--in simple English. That's a rare talent in casting instruction, regardless of the medium. His visual images, such "the orange line," "climbing the mountain," and "drawing an e on a brick wall" are useful and are accompanied by drawings that make the point even clearer. He shows what path the rod should take; explains what your arms, hands, and shoulders should be doing; and tells you where and where not to accelerate the rod.

Photos for casting instruction are tricky to get right. The photos in this book convey the information clearly. (The finest casting photos are Ben Blackwell's black-and-whites in the 1987 Mel Krieger classic, The Essence of Fly Casting. Those photos were not just clear and instructional; they were art).

Point of Departure--or Not

You don't have to hang around spey casters very long to realize there are more ways to fling a fly with a two-handed rod than you'd have thought possible. There are several styles, each with different line/rod choices. It's a confusing world, and you can get conflicting advice from different experts.

But before you go out and listen to all those other opinions you'd do well to master what Simon says, and make that your point of departure. Indeed, you may find you needn't depart at all.

If you haven't started spey casting yet, will you learn it from this book? Hmmm. I'm not convinced that a book is the best place to start. Personal instruction, either from an accomplished friend or from a paid teacher or guide, is probably the best introduction, if you can find the right person. But after that, the neophyte needs some solid follow-up, and there's no better place to get it--at least in the world of printed material--than this book.

Bottom Line: If you're serious about spey casting, buy this book. Reviewer Rating: 5

Scott Richmond is Westfly's creator and Executive Director. He is the author of eight books on Oregon fly fishing, including Fishing Oregon's Deschutes River (second edition).

Uploaded 02/03/2005.

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