The Quiet Evolution Of Skagit

By Herb Spannagl

The two most important laws of fly fishing are that you must be able to cast the fly to the fish and thereafter present it in such a way that the fish wants to eat it.  It does not matter what else you do well.  You might be a great trout spotter, artisan fly-tier, fearless river crosser or be kitted out with the most expensive gear but if you can not accomplish those two essential feats all your other efforts will count for nought.  What I am talking about is casting and line handling mastery, which in fly fishing are quite surprisingly very often  underrated abilities.  I have fished the Tongariro River since 1970 and over the years I probably see more anglers there in one day than I see elsewhere in a full fishing season.  I see the frustration of those with limiting casting skills, either not getting out to the fish or worse getting smacked by a heavy Tongariro bomb.

 Unlike other moving objects a fly line only travels forward as long as it turns over.  There are many casting styles to accomplish this but they all belong to one of two methods;  Overhead or Spey casting.  Every fly fisher knows what overhead casting is so I need not describe it.  Spey casting is less well understood.  Its principle characteristic is that the line instead of stretching out on the back cast forms a D-Loop whose bottom leg remains briefly anchored to the water.  

 Spey casting with its long and colourful history in northern Europe has in recent decades enjoyed a spectacular global revival, especially so in the United States.  There anglers fishing for Pacific anadromous steelhead and salmon have developed a casting style named after the Skagit River in Washington State.  Like many things “American” Skagit has eventually found its way to our trout fishing scene in New Zealand.  Here alongside the heavy promotion of double handed fly rods Skagit style streamer fishing has enjoyed a substantial following, especially so on the Tongariro River.    

 It is the evolution of Skagit style fishing in the New Zealand setting that I want to critically focus on in this article.  With the popularity of this style my analysis is bound to be controversial and I anticipate that a vigorous defence force will rises up to confront my evaluation.  I am a technical fly fisher and judge most aspects of this sport only on their technical merits.   In other words I ask myself, does whatever I am looking at actually makes sense?  To put it bluntly to my mind there are better ways than traditional Skagit to get flies down to deep lying fish.  

 On the Tongariro most Skagit outfits are used to target spawning run rainbows, which stubbornly hug the bottom of the river.  They do not feed and only occasionally intercept a fly, which must also be presented at depth.   

 A typical Skagit set-up consists of a short but heavy floating section, which acts as the casting weight to propel an attached sinking tip and at times a weighted fly.  A thick floating head, heavy sink tip and weighted fly have to be weight/mass balanced to cast well.  Therefore the total casting payload can be quite substantial and this demands a matched rod to deliver it.  On the Tongariro I have seen many such outfits that are hugely out of proportion with the typical three and a half pound Taupo trout.

 So what are the benefits of Skagit in New Zealand?  The few that I can think of are:

1. Anglers do not require a back cast and can fish in tight quarters.  

2. The accumulated mass of the thick floating head, sinktip and weighted fly has great inertia and this aids in loading the rod and cast very large flies.  The latter brings up the question why suddenly one needs a 6” fly to catch trout.   

3. The floating head also makes it easier for beginners to manage a reasonable delivery cast with not so perfect casting skills.   

 In addition to the accumulated weight of such an outfit there are several other disadvantages of the Skagit system.

1. The moment the floating head lands on the water it becomes a hindrance because it impedes the sinking tip from sinking freely.   

2. The bulky, often “high vis” coloured head skims unnaturally across the surface and this has been shown to spook fish.  

3. The sustained anchor casts normally associated with Skagit are very noisy and lack the elegance of other fly casting techniques.

4. In a river the fastest water flows at the surface.  This swings the floating Skagit head and the fly faster with less time in front of fish than if it were in a slower current deeper down.  

 Luckily this presentation can be done without having to take all the above mentioned handicaps on board.   Scandinavian anglers use a range of sinking shooting heads to Spey cast to trout and salmon.  At the beginning of last winter I fished at the Waimarino river-mouth at Lake Taupo with several other anglers.  After we all pulled out I learned that one of them had fished with a triple density Spey- castable shooting head made by Guideline of Sweden.  I had a trial flick with this new line , which to my astonishment sailed out much further than I would have expected.  Back home I did some research.  The Ultra Light Scandi 3D (triple density) sinking shooting heads come in a range of sinking densities for fishing from close to the surface all the way to the bottom of deep pools and fast currents.  Design-wise they become less dense but heavier towards the back to conform with typical Spey line design logic.  This seeming contradiction has two purposes.  As the casting weight is already built into the rear it makes them Spey cast really well.  The same feature also delays the turnover for very long Spey as well as overhead casts.  This is only half the story.  They also become lighter but denser towards the tip, which sinks faster. With this advanced design there is no need for a heavy floating Skagit head.  They sink immediately they hit the water and sink at a very shallow angle.  ULS 3D shooting heads only weigh 12-18grams or 185-280grain and are ideal for use with single hand and short double hand rods.  Because of their light overall weight they need to be cast with light, near frictionless mono shooting lines to achieve maximum distance.  

 Where will this trend go?  Good ideas get picked up by competitors very quickly and this can be observed in the gradual transformation of the original Skagit system.  We now see intermediate and even twin density Skagit heads and twin density iMOW tips with sexy names coming ever closer to these Scandinavian ULS integrated density sinking shooting heads.  I am sure common sense will prevail and the battle between between Skagit and Scandi will be largely one of geo/political name retention.

 With the absence of bed altering floods in the last few years willow seedlings are sprouting on almost every Lower Tongariro gravel beach; with some already big enough to make normal overhead casting difficult.  I have tried to Spey cast my normal, single density shooting heads but with mixed results.   Luckily during the winter I got my hands on a couple of these new Scandinavian sinking shooting heads, which are marketed by Guideline as ULS 3D+ shooting heads and are now imported by Sporting Life in Turangi.   

 My muscle memory is already programmed for the Tongariro Roll Cast set-up and with a few refinements this has become my “goto” method to easily Spey cast these shooting heads 80plus feet from both banks with my 9’ single hand rods.  Surprisingly with these short heads anchorage becomes quite critical and far to often I could hear the anchor blowing out behind me.  Maybe the problem is my single haul or the angle of the rod during the forward stroke?   I needed a solution.  This came via an additional 1m tip I had initially made up to increase the sinking of the front of the line.  This extra head length anchors my line much better and has massively improved my delivery casts.

ULS heads are very versatile.  Guideline videos show them casting these heads with a variety of Spey casting styles and short double hand rods.   

 Sadly, I am in the twilight of my fly fishing life and of what little that might be left I did not expect to encounter something as innovative as this new fly line invention.  During my last couple of trips I was keener perfecting my Spey casting with these new ULS heads than actually catching lots of trout.  Sound crazy, I know but for me the magic of fly fishing is the journey rather than the destination.  This new challenge makes me feel years younger and masks a lot of my normal aches and pains.   I am already looking forward to the next winter rainbow runs in the Tongariro.