Spey casting was once a niche technique for destination fly anglers, but Joe Rotter thinks today’s two-handed rods might be the most accessible game in fly fishing.
Twenty years ago, Spey rods were for salmon and steelhead, and the only anglers who used them either lived near anadromous water or traveled to far-flung fisheries like British Columbia and the Kola Peninsula. Lightweight rods and lines didn’t even exist.
Now, just about every serious fly angler has tried trout Spey. Two-handed casting is also gaining popularity beyond trout. The smallmouth and musky crowds are catching on. No need for backcast space. No burning out your shoulder false casting streamers and sinktips.
To many of us, however, Spey fishing still feels exclusive. A specialized technique for anglers who frequent lodges and refer to their rod collections as “quivers.”
Joe Rotter of Red’s Fly Shop in the Yakima River Canyon disagrees. He thinks Spey fishing is easier, more accessible, and less gear-intensive than what you’re probably doing on the river.
Joe grew up in central Washington and has guided there for more than two decades—rainbows, smallmouth, and, of course, steelhead in the Columbia River Basin. He also helps run one of the best instructional YouTube channels in fly fishing. These days, he’s a two-handed evangelist who teaches casting seminars around the country, but he didn’t come from the original school of Spey.
Learning the Hard Way
Joe’s two-handed origin story started like everyone else’s: badly. Around 2001, a guide buddy showed up on a steelhead trip with a Spey setup. “He’s like, ‘Hey man, you should try this. We can cast a long ways and it’s real easy,’” Joe remembers. “And I failed miserably. He literally walked away [from me] and said, ‘I can’t help you.’” But Joe recognized the potential.
He ordered one of the huge European-style rods that defined early Spey fishing and paired it with a notoriously unforgiving line. “I learned how to cast on that, which made every other line I ever cast the rest of my life feel like a walk in the park.” By the mid-2000s he was a full-on convert, but he, like everyone else, limited Spey fishing to anadromous fish.
Leopard Rainbow Inspiration
In 2008, Joe was hosting a trip in Alaska, swinging for kings. In between the salmon, however, they were hooking spectacular rainbows that weren’t as much fun as they should have been on those big rods.
“I felt like we should have been running six-weights,” he says. “I realized we could actually trout fish with these same techniques.”
At the time, trout Spey didn’t exist. “It wasn’t much of a thing fifteen-plus years ago,” Joe says, but a few companies were making lighter switch rods for summer-steelhead. He got a seven-weight and started swinging for trout and smallmouth on the Yakima. “We were having a lot of fun and success.”
The Micro Spey Revolution
Around 2012, what Joe calls the “micro Spey revolution” kicked off. “I was like, 'oh, five-weight Spey. Now we’re talking.'” Rods got smaller and lighter. Shooting heads got shorter. “A twelve-foot head felt like cheating the system,” he says. “A monkey can Spey cast” with one.
Shorter heads not only flattened the learning curve, they made Spey casting viable and effective for different kinds of water and presentations. Long heads are built for big water with the classic down-and-across swing. Short heads let you control your casts at shorter distances.
“We’re not just fishing bars and big tailouts,” Joe says. “We’re picking apart log jams, skipping the fly up under brush, soft drifting behind rocks. It’s a little bit like driving a school bus in a parking garage versus a Mini Cooper. I can park that Mini Cooper anywhere I want, and I can do it really fast with no stress.” Short, heavy Skagit heads let him effectively fish streamers without worrying about putting backcasts into trees or wearing out his shoulder chucking and ducking all day.
A Rod, Some Tippet, and a Six Pack (of Flies)
Which brings us to the shift Joe finds most interesting. Two-handed casting used to be synonymous with expensive travel—BC, the West Coast, Russia, Patagonia. Now it’s the opposite.
“It’s everybody’s sport,” Joe says. A big part of the appeal, he points out, is that it’s a ground game. “You don’t need a boat. You can drive up and road-hunt for water. The everyday grinder can be very successful.”
For a sport that loves to complicate itself, trout Spey is refreshingly spare. “You have a six-pack of flies, a spool of 1X, 2X tippet, and you can go fish a whole day,” Joe says. “You don’t need indicators, you don’t need multiple fly rigs, you don’t spend any time tangled.”
You don’t even need trout. Joe considers brushy bass rivers purpose-built for micro Spey gear. “Smallmouth don’t live at the edge of big open gravel bars. You’re in brushy streams—a lot of riparian growth—where you have extremely limited backcast opportunities.”
Why Bother?
If you can already throw forty feet with a single-hander and a sink tip, why switch?
Historically, articles like these have answered that question through the lens of steelhead or salmon fishing preparation. Practicing your Spey cast on low-stakes home water means you’ll be ready should you ever find yourself staring down a greasy steelhead run. “If you decide to jump in a plane and go to BC someday, you’re already going to have a foundational skillset,” Joe says. “7:00 AM on a prime steelhead run is no time to be learning how to cast.”
That’s true, but the most compelling argument Joe makes for picking up Spey fishing has nothing to do with a dream trip you may or may not take someday. It’s about efficiency on your home water. Not only does a two-hander save wear and tear on your shoulder, it keeps your fly in the water longer. No one ever caught a fish on a false cast.
“I’m probably going to double the number of presentations a single-hand angler’s getting,” he says. “I’m not going to take any mulligans. I’m going to get that fly tight and perfect every single time, and I’m going to be stepping downstream while a lot of other guys are still false casting or picking their fly out of the tree behind them.”
And then there’s the part that needs no justification. “The dopamine hits bigger,” Joe says. “Double hands, double dopamine, man. There’s something about throwing that two-hander that everybody loves. You just can’t get enough of it.”
Where to Start
Joe recommends starting with an eleven-foot four-weight rod, a Skagit head no longer than sixteen feet, and three tips: a floater, an intermediate, and a light sink tip. That will cover everything from swinging wets for rainbows and cutthroat to hucking streamers for browns and bass.
Skip the heavy fast-sinking stuff at first. It’s harder to cast and snags up. “Snagging is the mortal enemy of success. Fish over their heads. Find out if they’re willing to come up before you try to go down and get them.”
Start close and work your way out. “Own that forty-foot cast,” he says. “If you can’t own the water right in front of you, you have no business casting beyond that.”
Don’t get stuck on the down-and-across, forty-five-degree swing. Present flies broadside at ninety degrees, the same way you would with a single-handed streamer rod. That’s what predatory trout and smallmouth often want.
Start with small, sparse patterns. “People have a miserable experience trying to cast articulated streamers as their first experience,” Joe says. “It’s cruel and unusual punishment.” Don’t assume you need to fish giant flies to catch big fish. “Even elephants eat peanuts.”