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

originator: Günter Feuerstein (A)

The history of the Snap-T

Some situations demand a unique technique to make fishing these situations more effective and more economic. In the late 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. Wading was forbibben.

There was no back-space available at all as the banks were covered with bushes and trees 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 (bottom only feeding grayling population) 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.  This happened in the late eighties.

 

The GF pick-up cast, meanwhile known as Snap-T, was born.

I have showed this cast in several shows all around Europe and in the United States in the last decade. Very special thanks to my student Graham Anderson from Calgary whom I taught this cast at an FFF Conclave.  Grahamrecognized it to be very useful especiually for fishing with double hand rods. So he asked me to be allowed to give the cast a short name which would make it easier to teach it in North America. Graham proposed to use the short name Snap-T. I agreed to his proposal and Graham and his instructor colleague Floyd Dean were promoting this very special cast in several fly casting demos in the last decade and made the name Snap-T popular in North America. The cast is an important element of modern double hand casting now and was published in several magazines and fly casting books around the world.

How to perform the Snap-T

I usually distinguish between two Snap-T versions which I use depending to the situations. The Snap-T can either be used as an upstream presentation cast (shooting line upstreams in situations where only limitted space is available or for moving the end of the fly line and fly upstream to prepare for the presentation cast downstream that is following(Snap-T for double hand rods). The double hand version is used by many salmon fishers all around the world now.

The Snap-T upstream presentation technique

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.

The Snap-T for a traditional downstream presentation as it is used for a "Single Spey" can be done either with a single hand or a double hand rod. The principle and the performance are exactly the same, only the tackle is different.

technique:
One is to just bring the line end upstream of your position to follow with a Forward "Spey"(better Long Line) 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 or an underhand cast.

Snap-T for double hand rods