Fishing the Collie Dog …

[minho]

can be quite productive and exciting, but also a curse with a medium-long belly line.

Therefore, I am thinking about buying a SH or a short belly line for that purpose; in other words, I am looking for a proper set up to fish the monkey/sunray/collie. Any help on this subject would be greatly appreciated.

My rods are the T&T #10-5, T&T #11-6 (my favourite rod), and a Sharpes of Aberdeen #8/9, 13’3” with 6 sections. Do I need another rod? I hope not, but …


Thanks in advance


Paulo

[guidduglucy]

I fish Collie/Sunray/riffle hitch on a 13foot hardy swift and a #9 Hardy spey line 55 foot never had a reason to complain about it. The rod is rated for an #8 but the #9 gets it going quicker for those short casts when the fish are close in as I will do 3 or 4 times as many casts as with a normal flee on.

[Eminem]

I gave up using double handers when fishing the collie and now stick to a stiff and fast-ish 10'6" single hander which can easily cast as far with the right line set up (if conditions permit overhead casting of course).

I tend to fish the collie big and very fast with lots of line lying everywhere, this was just way too much hard work with the longer rods.

That said, having just watched henrik mortensen's latest DVD (Scandinavian Speycast II) his use of "switch" rods could very well be the answer.

All the best, Mark.

[minho]

Jan 28, 2010 15:59:04 GMT Eminem said:

I gave up using double handers when fishing the collie and now stick to a stiff and fast-ish 10'6" single hander which can easily cast as far with the right line set up (if conditions permit overhead casting of course).

I tend to fish the collie big and very fast with lots of line lying everywhere, this was just way too much hard work with the longer rods.

That said, having just watched henrik mortensen's latest DVD (Scandinavian Speycast II) his use of "switch" rods could very well be the answer.

All the best, Mark.

Eminem

That’s very interesting, as I tried hard to fish it with my Orvis #7, 10ft rod. The three main problems I had with such an approach were:

- as you mentioned, the problem of back space to cast overhead; of course this is one of the big advantage of spey casting with a DH rod; IMHO spey casting with a SH rod is never effective, unless you are facing a relatively small river, but that can just be my personal problem

- given the size of the fly and its air resistance, it was almost impossible to make the end of the line and the leader to turn over properly; on the other hand I was able to do it with the DH rod and the associated lines (because they were heavier?)

- plenty of time lost in casting overhead; it is so much more time-efficient to spey cast …

Now, a general remark. This forum had a great start but is now very quiet, which is really a pity.