The Single Spey Cast with Andrew Toft - Mastering Spey Casting

In this Spey Casting video Andrew Toft takes an in depth look at the Single Spey Cast and the fundamental requirements to achieve the correct alignment and change of direction. This includes the movement of the upper body and hands to influence the essential rod tip path.

[@mikekuczynski1552]

It’s a tuff cast , this will help make it easier. Thanks for the video

[@kevingibbet1566]

Very comprehensive with a great breakdown of the process. I'll try to put your advice into practice.

[@petermorse5442]

The best single spey descriptive I've seen. Thanks.

[@lexm9416]

This is excellent - as someone just learning to Spey cast this year, I’d make an observation and welcome comments - the cast also changes slightly with the speed of the water flow - a faster flow provides a greater ‘grip’ on your anchor and (to me at least) requires me to commence my forward cast slightly earlier - hope this makes sense.

[@bewing77]

I like this video since it focuses on what many ”single spey tutorials” are missing: that the primary function of a spey cast is to move the line back up stream. Most videos focus on getting the one perfect lift, sweep and cast for shooting the maximum ammount of line and while yes, distance is sometimes good, if you can’t get the line out of that washed out position it doesn’t matter if you can shoot 150 feet of line.

[@paulclark1309]

Hi Andy, out of all the spey casting videos I've watched ( a lot). This is by far the best description and visuals I have ever seen. Are you still doing casting lessons? Would love to spend a day with you so you can help me get to grips with losing my bad habits.

[@AndrewToftSpeycasting]

Hi Paul, Apologies for the delay in replying, I will certainly be doing some more videos soon.

[@jayjaypopup884]

More please ✋🏼

[@DuncanPepper]

Nice one Andy.

[@jamesskinner1996]

Thank you Andrew, if a person takes advise it might as well be from the best. Sometime you might mention how to adapt the single spey with a sink-tip.

[@AndrewToftSpeycasting]

Hi James, The main point in the video is the correct change of direction, so many times you see the line dropped down or pulled across the angler and it is practically impossible to achieve the correct movements and alignment by doing so. All to often the anchor will be curved or across in front of the angler and the D loop out of alignment. ( you will see this often ) We have to make adjustments all the time for various reasons one of them being the tackle or equipment that we are using. If you are using a sink tip you may want to consider a bit more range of movement when delivering the cast and not too tight a loop when casting. However that said after rolling the line to the surface prior to the cast. The only consideration to the important change of direction movements would be maybe a slight change in tempo the fundamentals would still be the same.

[@spazz99ful]

Hi Andy, Andy here,, excellent detailed description, one question though, when you initially lift line off the water, do you point the rod completely down stream, or do you point it toward your aim? It looks like you are pointing down stream with a slight outward slant, as it would make sense, comparatively it would seem impossible to point toward the aim, and then have room and time to make the sweep, I'm asking as other classical spey casting instructors, specifically say that you should lift line off the water, and point the rod toward your casting direction, and then begin the sweep, i can see it would work though, but it would also create an unnecessary large D loop, while your cast with a decent long belly and large change off direction, apparently did not claim a lot off room behind you.

[@AndrewToftSpeycasting]

I personally don’t point towards the intended target as it would only work with narrow changes of direction or short lines. In order to effectively change wider angles we always need the outward movement and momentum of the line to effectively turn it round into position. The more we can initially encourage the line outward the more chance we have of aligning the anchor and D loop correctly. For example it would be practically impossible to do an effective 90deg Single Spey cast by pointing the rod tip to the aim.

[@robertwest7197]

Thanks Andrew! I’d love another video of this cast/instruction from a different angle so I can see your top/bottom hand hand more. I know I’m not to pull with my top hand, because your back is toward the camera I can’t see fully how your steering the rod. Any chance of another video? I would very much appreciate it and thanks in advance if you can.

[@AndrewToftSpeycasting]

Hi Robert, Sure I will be definitely doing some more videos soon. I cannot look at anymore Single Spey videos with all the pulling and thrashing around with inappropriate use of the hands. 🥹 Accounts for so many mistakes, we cannot use the flexible nature of the rod if our hand are not working efficiently.

[@robertwest7197]

@@AndrewToftSpeycasting Thanks Andrew, I’m super appreciative for the effort you put into this. I’m anxious to see your next videos.

[@Strontyum]

God this is complex

[@AndrewToftSpeycasting]

Yes it is one of the hardest casts to learn, if you do it properly.