BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- Spey's the way.
Tired of traditional one-handed fly-fishing -- in itself a difficult, delicate art -- some anglers in the Northwest are turning to Spey rods, rods so long they require two hands to cast. Others are trying the "switch rod," a cross between a two-handed and single-handed rod.
"It's just gone bonkers," said John Smeraglio of the Deschutes Canyon Fly Shop in Maupin, Ore., a short cast from the famed Deschutes River where he estimates 70 percent of steelhead anglers now use two-handed rods. "There's certainly a huge variety of product out there. It's almost too much. It's getting confusing."
Typical fly rods are seven-nine feet long and require one hand to cast, using the weight of the line to propel a near weightless fly to a desired spot. The longer two-handed rods, 13-15 feet, require two hands to cast.
If used properly, an exquisite ballet of timing and movement will load and unload the extra-long rods to send a fly 100 feet or more across a river, far past what most anglers are capable of casting with a one-handed rod.
Two-handed rods are intended for big rivers and big fish. The extra length of the rods lets anglers "mend" the fly line once it's in the water to make the fly work properly across the river, and the long casts allow anglers to cover more territory, therefore increasing the chances of turning a day of fishing into a day of catching.
The two-handed rod also allows anglers to keep the line in front of them during the cast, avoiding snagging trees and brush on the bank -- the original reason the Spey rod was invented more than a century ago on the Spey River in Scotland.
Paul Johnson of Sage, a Seattle company that makes fly rods, said Spey rods began trickling into the Northwest from British Columbia some two decades ago, mostly as a novelty.
They slowly caught on, he said, and in the last five years their popularity has soared, leading to "Spey claves" where anglers gather for days on a river for expert instruction.
They've become more popular on Northwest steelhead streams such as the Deschutes and northern Idaho's Clearwater River. The rods are even being used by surf anglers on both the East and West coasts.
"I think they're being used for everything at this point," he said.
One of the most recent inventions is the "switch rod," shorter versions of Spey rods that can be used by steelhead anglers as well as trout anglers on smaller streams who want to get in on the fun. Switch rods can be cast with two hands or one hand, a development that would doubtless have the inventors of the original Spey rod shuddering.
"I think the opportunity to branch out and try something different is pretty interesting to folks," said Johnson of the switch rods. "It's a great little rod to have in your quiver."