Spey Nation

Spey Nation

SPEY NATION RETURNS AUGUST 9-11 2024

More details to come, but be sure to save the date. Expecially Saturday, August 10th when Spey Nation will feature a wide variety of free presentations, lunch, local and industry vendor booths in addition to the private casting classes, to celebrate and bring together the spey community at the center of and responsible for this annual gathering.

Announcing Spey Nation 2024’s Private Class Lineup

Introduction to Spey Casting with Topher Browne, Jeff Liskay and Rick Kustich

  • Description: This course focuses on the waterborne anchor casts – the double Spey and C-Spey or snap-T. The course is designed for beginner casters or those looking to strengthen the basics of these casts for greater performance and distance. The objective is for participants to learn solid fundamentals that allow for fishing from either bank of the river.
  • Equipment: Either a Skagit or Scandi head with a floating or intermediate tip. 

Single Spey and Snake Roll with Topher Browne and Rick Kustich (Intermediate)

  • Course Description: This course focuses on the touch and go casts – the single Spey and snake roll. The course is designed for intermediate casters that’s have learned the basics of Spey casting. The single Spey and snake roll add another an important tool to a Spey angler’s arsenal creating a more efficient and stealthy manner to present the fly. The objective of the course is to strengthen the core principles of these casts for greater proficiency, smoothness, and distance.
  • Equipment: A Scandi head with a floating or intermediate tip.

Presenting the Swung Fly with Nick Pionessa and Rick Kustich (Intermediate)

  • Description: This course focuses on Spey fishing and presenting the fly. The course is designed as a comprehensive discussion of all aspects of the Spey fishing approach including equipment, rigging, the basic presentation and controlling both depth and speed. The course also addresses effectively covering various water types, specific structural elements, and hooking and landing fish while Spey fishing. The discussion concludes with a look at effective fly swing patterns.
  • Equipment: Either a Skagit or Scandi head with a floating or intermediate tip.

Fishing Casts with Nick Pionessa (Intermediate)

  • Course Description: This course focuses on taking the Spey cast to actual fishing situations. The course is designed to adapt the cast to enhance the presentation of the fly by controlling angle, distance and enhancing stealth. The participant will learn how to adjust the cast for real fishing conditions that impact the cast including wind, depth, current, and obstructions. Participants will leave with a sound foundation for casting off both shoulders – critical for adjusting to the conditions for both casting efficiency and safety.
  • Equipment: Either a Skagit or Scandi head with a floating or intermediate tip.

Introduction to Trout Spey & Single-Handed Spey with Rick Kustich

  • Advancements in equipment has allowed Spey to expand into a wider range of water and species beyond salmon and steelhead. This course focuses on adjusting equipment and techniques to focus on the pursuit of trout and smallmouth bass in rivers and streams of all sizes. Participants will learn the nuances of presenting and fishing the fly specifically for trout and smallmouth. The course also include hands-on instruction of casting lighter trout Spey setups and one hand Spey casts.
  • Equipment: Trout Spey setup with either a Skagit or Scandi head and floating or intermediate tip. Also, a single hand rod with a micro Skagit head. There will also be equipment available for use.

Anchor-Centric Spey Casting with Zack Williams (Intermediate)

  • Course Description: This course is aimed at taking your existing spey casting skills and identifying the weakest links with the goal of improving your consistency and efficacy as a spey caster and angler, using Zack Williams’ Anchor-Centric methodology. We’ll focus on tweaking your existing casting style/form, not overhauling it. The course will progress on the following rough timeline: A 20-minute discussion of the basics of the Anchor-Centric philosophy. Everyone gets in the water and begins working on their own casting. After a few minutes of observation, Zack will come around and provide individualized feedback and tips for improvement. After roughly 1.5 hours of work, everyone will huddle back up, take a break, and then discuss some highlights/observations from the first half, answer questions, and then discuss additional/more advanced tips for improvement. Then we’ll break back off and finish the class working more on those skills. The end goal of this course is to identify 1-3 hot tips/weakest links for each student to work on, with the goal of everyone being well on their way to more consistency and skill as a spey caster.
  • Course prerequisite: Minimum 2 years of spey casting, where you’re comfortable with all the steps of the casts you are trying to perform (e.g., double spey, snap-t, single, snake roll) and are now working on improving consistency, distance, control, etc. (If you are not familiar with steps and terminology such as anchor, sweep, forward cast, etc., please join one of the beginner spey classes, which will be better suited to help you on your journey!) 
  • Equipment: Please bring the rod and reel you are comfortable with and want to practice/work on improving with. Any style of line/rod is acceptable as long as you are comfortable with it.

Distance Spey Casting with Zack Williams (Advanced)

  • Description: This course will work through instructor Zack Williams’ fundamentals of distance casting with the goal of tweaking your existing casting style to add more efficiency and thus power/distance. The course will begin with a demonstration/discussion of a fundamental, then break off for 30-45 minutes of practice and hands-on instruction. Students and Zack will then meet back up for a recap and then a discussion of the next skill before breaking back off for more practice until all the fundamentals have been covered and practice time for each allowed. 
  • Course prerequisite: 4+ years of avid spey casting. Students should be comfortable and proficient with all/most of the spey casts (double spey, snap-t, single, snake roll) from both sides of the river. While this course will deal with adding distance to waterborne anchor casts for a portion of the time, much of the course will focus more on the single spey and snake roll. Students should be comfortable and fairly consistent with those casts and looking to take it to the next level. (Basics will not be covered in this class and more harm than good will come from working on distance before you have become very comfortable with basic mechanics.)
  • Equipment: This class is best suited to use of a floating line. Ideally students will bring a 14’+ rod and line of 45′ or more — but you can perform this class with a shorter rod and scandi line if that is your preferred equipment. Please use a setup that you currently practice/fish and are comfortable with! 

BE SURE TO JOIN OUR FREE SPEY NATION 2024 EMAIL LIST TO BE THE FIRST TO KNOW WHEN CLASSES OPEN FOR REGISTRATION

Spey Nation 2024 is sponsored by: