Get with the Trout Swing Season

Some interesting changes happen as November progresses.  The days shorten and warm up less and less.  Waters steadily cool to their chilly winter lows.  Fish begin to shift to winter levels of activity, which means they often activate later and for shorter durations during the day.  None of this sounds awesome unless you are into the game we call trout Spey.  Then, it’s your season of swing.

Swinging flies often works best when fish are holding in predictable locations.  When the water gets cold, trout will concentrate in areas where they don’t need to work very hard to live.  Shelves, deep buckets, soft converging flows and inside turns become key zones to target.  A slowly swung fly dangled in the face of a group of hungry trout is bound to provoke a grab.  We all love the grab.  If you want to set yourself up for some grabs and a whole lot of fun, plan on the following.

Unleash your Underhand

In Europe, anglers don’t refer to the term Spey like we do in the USA.  The terms they use are underhand or two-hand casting.  If you want to enjoy the easiest distance and most fun style of delivery for swinging trout flies on two-handed rods, you need to use the hand under your reel.  That’s why two-handed rods have an extra-long grip placed down there.  When a forward casting stroke is made, the underhand pulls the butt of the rod inward while the top hand provides a fulcrum and aims the cast.  When properly executed, the underhand cast easily unleashes the maximum power within the rod.  The line travels much farther and with less effort than with a single hand, overhead cast.  Then it is swing time.

Need a casting class? Watch these.

Each Cast is a Mini Swing Session

When you unleash the power of the underhand and send a long cast across the river, you can relax and enjoy the swing.  As the fly comes under tension and your line begins to belly, the fly dances across the river, swimming in shifting currents and ready to entice any trout intersected by its path.  Your mind often follows the fly’s path, imagining how it looks and visualizing what the trout will see.  You might choose to impart a little extra action, or simply let the currents do as they will.

As the fly completes its arc, your anticipation builds.  You are always alert for a change in tension, a subtle pluck, a steady pull or a mind-bending jerk.  At the end of each cast, there is a pause.  The swing is over, but not the fishing session.  A potential player might be staring at a prospective meal.  You give the fly a bump and sometimes the line comes abruptly tight.  If not, you might get a grab as you retrieve the running line.  When your running line is in, you set up a new cast and repeat the process.

Swing Tools

To get the most from swing season, you will need the right tools.  The ideal rods for trout swinging activities run from 2 to 5-weight with lengths ranging from 10’ 6” to 11’ 11”.  Rods on the longer side are generally used to target fish on larger western rivers like the Missouri.

Two-hand trout Spey rods we like include are; the Redington Hydrogen, Echo TR, G Loomis IMX Pro, Sage Pulse, Sage One, Winston Microspey, and Loop Opti NXT.  All these rods will perform well, as long as they are matched with the proper line set up.

Looking for a performance Spey rod? Check out our selection here.

Skagit Heads with Sink Tips

When you get your underhand engaged, the entire Skagit head D-looped in the air, and the sinking tip properly anchored, you can really send it!  Skagit heads are easy to cast, and anglers can choose sink tips of varying length and sinking rate based on their fishing needs.  A properly matched Skagit head and several sink tips will set you up for success in most conditions.

Scandi Heads with Tapered Mono or Poly Leaders

Scandi heads are the elegant partner to the Skagit.  We like to fish Scandi heads when fish are in fast shallow water or deeper slow-moving runs.  To create an anchored casting point, the Scandi system relies on the leader to grip the water’s surface.  Because leaders are thinner than tips, they need to be long.  Long leaders are ideal when stealth is desired, and they can give flies some latitude to sink when needed.

Integrated Lines

Underhand or Spey casting has spawned a whole new range of fly line designs for the trout market.  Now you can find a fly line to match your Skagit or Scandi style shooting head in an integrated package.  In other words, the integrated lines are like conventional fly lines with various taper choices and a seamless running line.  These seamless lines offer a couple of advantages over shooting head styles.

The clearest advantage is for fishing close in.  While the underhand cast provides easy distance, sometimes you’ll want to retrieve that fly in relatively close.  No one enjoys the awkwardness of a shooting head connection when it grinds in and out of your guides when retrieving or feeding out line.

When it’s really cold and you have icing in your guides, an integrated line is less likely to get stuck.  Sometimes a running line to head connection fails to clear the eyelet.  It’s a big challenge trying to land a fish that is 30 feet away with no way to retrieve any more line.  I call that situation an episode of extreme Tenkara.  The Airflo Switch Streamer is an ideal integrated Skagit solution while the Switch Float is perfect for long leaders and lighter flies.

What do we love about trout Spey in the fall? Read this.

Swing Flies

Here in the Fly Shop, the buzz has recently shifted from dry flies to swing flies.  Leeches and smaller streamers are filling fly cups, destined for the river.  Marabou, simi seal dubbing, squirrel zonker strips, fox fur, and colored tungsten beads are suddenly popular.

Swing flies don’t have to be complicated.  A #10 wooly bugger is a great place to start.  Anything that looks like a leech, a minnow, a sculpin, or an emerging insect can be swung successfully.  Balanced leeches and fox fur Clouser minnows are winter favorites.  Flies, soft hackled with partridge over pheasant, peacock, colored thread, tinsel, wire or dubbed bodies are effective micro bites.

Swing flies can also be more complicated if you want them to be.  Because fish will have ample time to view a swung fly, anglers have lots of fun trying to make them attractive.  You’ll want to think tubes, shanks, trailer hooks, and soft wiggly parts.  Rubber legs, flashabou, ostrich, and fine hackle tips are often combined with rabbit, marabou, and fox to create micro intruder style flies that look like nothing in a trout stream but can be very appealing to a hungry fish.

Many anglers utilize a two-fly set up with a small streamer like a balanced leech upfront trailed by a soft hackle or smaller unweighted fly.  Not only does this provide the fish with multiple options, but it allows the angler to play with a variety of colors and fly styles.  I like using tippet rings to rig up multi-fly rigs, but many anglers use the tags from their blood or surgeon’s knots to add the top fly.

Spey tips: Watch how to swing soft hackle flies with Tom Larimer here.

Swing It!

I love to swing flies on a lightweight two-hander.  I will be on the water working my underhand and enjoying trout swing sessions throughout the winter and at least until the weeds come back next July.  If you need any of these tools or want to talk tackle and techniques, the coffee is always on and the fishing flap never subsides.  Spey (underhand) casting lessons are also available by appointment throughout the year.  Stop by the shop and we’ll set you up.