Swinging flies for trout on light weight two-handers has gained quite a bit of popularity over the last few years, and for good reason.. It’s super fun!
In a lot of ways, spey fishing for trout is very similar to swinging flies for salmon and steelhead. The casting is nearly identical, and most of the time competent spey casters have no problem making the switch to the shorter rods and lighter gear ideal for trout. However, the retrieve methods (how to actually fish the fly) can vary quite a bit from the traditional ‘down and across’ swing used for salmon and steelhead. Unlike salmon and steelhead, trout actively hunt their prey, often requiring a more aggressive retrieve to evoke a strike, particularly when fishing streamers.
Recently, our own Whitney Gould brought to our attention a great video from Headhunter’s Fly Shop showcasing several deadly retrieve methods when swinging flies for trout with one of the best in the business, Mike McCune. If you plan on swinging flies for trout this year, do yourself a favor and check out the video below.
If you all don’t do these techniques already with 1 AND 2 handed rods, get on board!
Hello! Thanks for the video, these are great to watch and learn some new stuff ??
I have a question:
I live in Michigans Upper Peninsula and therefore have access to lots of different water types such as: large rivers, small rivers, big lakes, small lakes, piers, creeks, ect. I’ve been told that when using a 12-14′ 7wt to 9wt Spey rod for Salmon/Steelhead, you don’t strip in those streamers like you would on single handers. This bummed me out because I’ve wanted to get a Spey rod for big streamers and was planning on trying out different techniques on it.
According to this video, it would appear that you can try stripping and anything else you want on Spey rods correct??
Thanks,
~alex