GF up-stream pick up

better known as

Snap-T
(aka Snap Cast, C-Spey, Circle Cast)

originator: Günter Feuerstein

history:

Some situations demand a unique technique to make fishing these situations more effective and more economic. In the eighties I developed a technique to make it possible to fish one of my home waters in a better way. The water was a drainage channel being about 5 to 8 meters wide and containing a very good grayling and rainbow trout population. The only problem was that fly casting was not that easy there because you were not allowed to stand into the water to present your fly.

There was no back-space available at all and the only possibility for a presentation was to use the space above the water for your backcast. Because of the fact that nymph fishing was the only effective grayling technique in this water (because of the bottom only feeding grayling population there) I wanted to use a cast that should work especially well with the nymph and would avoid contact with the bushes and trees at the river banks. Overhead casts work well in certain situations, but the possibility of a heavy nymph hitting your rod and damaging it by doing so is always present. So another way of managing this special situation was necessary.

Buy playing around with my rod on the lawn to create something new I stepped over a helpful movement that solved my back-space problem.
 

The GF pick-up, in the flycasting scene called Snap-T now, was born.

This happened in the late eighties.
 

I have showed this cast in several shows all around Europe and in the United States in the last years. Very special thanks to Graham Anderson from Calgary and Floyd Dean  who were promoting this very special cast in several fly casting demos in the last years and made the name Snap-T popular. The cast has also found his way into modern two hand rod fly casting.  (Snap-T for double handers) and even in the Rio booklet.

Snap-T for single hand rods      

After you have fished out your nymph/salmon fly and it has already drifted back to your bank some way downstreams below your place you drop your rod tip to avoid any slack between the rod tip and the water surface. Point with your rod in direction to your nymph before you start the cast.

This low starting point is necessary to make a long fluent movement possible to make the cast most effective. Do never forget that a fly line always follows the path of your rod tip!

The cast is done in a sideways position. It is some kind of a side-cast.

right river bank - upstream presentation:
Be sure that your rod is in a sideways position and your reel is pointing upstream before you start your cast.

left river bank - upstream presentation:
Make sure your rod is in a sideways position and your reel is pointing downstream and that you are going to deliver a back cast. This means that the way you are handling your rod on the left bank of a river is the same as if you are doing the back cast of a basic/foundation cast.

The movement:

You start moving your rod now. Your rod tip tries to keep a straight path from the starting point into the direction you want the fly to land. A steady speeding up of the rod is neccessary to get best acceleration and highest speed at the stop. After the positive stop of your rod tip at about 11o'clock you pull back your rod tip under the path of the fly line that is on its way to the target. This means you actively divide the two paths to avoid the fly line to hit your rod tip. This pulling-back-movement can be round or v-shaped, but has to be fast. The pulling back is speeding up your fly line. After that the rod tip follows in the direction of the cast again to make the fly line shoot through the rings in a more efficient way if you want to cast longer distances.

way of hauling:
During the whole movement of your casting stroke, the line hand makes a single haul in the way I suggest on my pages. This means that the haul is only done by the rod hand(!).

Snap-T for double handed rods    

For two handed casting the Snap-T is used in different variations, but I only want to mention two of them now:

for Traditional Spey Cast: 

see video

One is to just bring the line end upstream of your position to follow with a single spey roll cast. In comparision with the traditional form of the Single Spey the use of a Snap-T in the first part of the cast (bringing the line upwards of your position) causes the line end to point upstreams which makes it much easier to follow now with the final roll cast. If you use the traditional method especially beginners usually have a little problem with the current, because if they are starting the forward  roll cast too late the enrolling loop catches the line laying on the water. By using the Snap-T you have far more time ...

Airalized Snap-T (meanwhile known as Snap-Z) for Underhand Cast/ Switch Cast with 0-90° change of direction: 

This cast is based on the GF Pick up and was introduced in the late eighties, too.

see video

The airalized Snap-T (Snap-Z) is done more or less in the same manner but the second part of the cast is airalized for reduction of water contact so only the line end is kissing the water just in the moment when the forward cast is started.