Getting started with Trout Spey

Trout Spey (or micro spey) is a type of fishery that has become more and more popular the past 5 years. It's basically a down sized double handed rod that steelhead fishermen use but for trout. Generally 10 to 12ft long, these down sized double handed rods are getting more and more momentum. One does need to figure out how this whole spey game works.

Trout spey rods are classified as #2 to #4 weight line rods. For fishing with spiders and small streamers the really ultra light trout (#2 and #3 weight) spey rods come in play, while the larger streamer fishing rigs are a bit heavier (#4 weight). Back in 2017 I asked Robert Sherill, a bamboo rod maker from Texas, to build me an ultra light (#2) Trout spey rod (graphite). It's still unfished (or even cast!). This ultra light Trout spey fishing using spiders (and the occasional small streamer) is what I want to try soon.

Now to continue the confusion, the line weights on spey rods are *not* the same as we know with regular single handed fly rods. The rule of thumb with spey line weight is to add three line weights to get the equivalent line weight of the regular fly line. So a #2 Trout spey line is equivalent of a 2 + 3 = 5 weight regular fly line. And a #4 Trout spey line weighs the same as a regular 7 weight fly line.

These ultra light double handed rods have become popular for fall fishing for browns using (big) streamers on large rivers like the Missouri river in Montana. These streamers are fished deep down using heavy sink tips on the so called Skagit heads. This isn't the streamer fishing as we know (casting and stripping the line in to impart movement to the streamer) but swinging the streamer by the current at a downstream angle. With spey rods it's not fished upstream. If this fishing streamers deep down during the fall months isn't exactly your type of fishing, the alternative is swinging soft hackles just below the surface, also downstream at an angle.

Joe Rotter from Red's Fly Shop is a guy who explains many aspects of fly fishing extremely well. Here's a good first entry video about how a Trout spey rig looks like and what comes with it.

A nice article about starting with trout spey at Fly Fisherman website.