Welcome to the Aussiefly Newsletter where we look a bit deeper into fly fishing and tying that the normal quick sweep over. Here we take a look at product reviews, fly tying ideas, fly casting and travel.

What's new in Fly Fishing?

There is a mini revolution happening with the fly rods, because at long last, the Double Handed fly rod has arrived here in Australia as it did long, long ago in most fly fishing places around the World.

Not the rod most people think of as a Double - the Spey rod. These new rods are specially developed for our conditions in both the salt and freshwater for this country, Australia and New Zealand and specifically designed for casting Overhead.

Now why it has taken about 200years for Aussie to catch up to the Scandinavian countries we will never know. However, this delay could be viewed to our advantage because now there are rod building design and constructions techniques available that were not considered about 5years ago. And with the introduction of lines pacifically designed for these long rods the path for the average caster has been made a lot easier than ever before.

As a general over view of the exciting new World of Double Handed rods and lines and their capabilities, here are a few of the facts to start you thinking.

Rods. The smallest rods are around 12 foot long in 7/8w - 430grains class. However a 7/8w Double line is the equivalent to a normal fly line of about 11w.

Which enables the caster to reach distances around 80/100 feet with a quick back and once forward stroke.

Added to the performance factors are the potential of Roll, Underhand and the normal Spey casts. Roll cast with a head like a T-14 to around 60 feet plus is considered the average. If the caster were to add one of the specially designed Overhead lines this would further increase the flexibility of this form of fly casting, as most have a floating Head section which improves the Roll and Spey casting.

There are a number of Overhead Double also known as DHOH rods available in what, at first, appears a strange way of describing the rod or line class as the normal DHOH fly rod is described as the line weight and the rod length, with the following being the standard in these rods: 7/8w - 12foot, 8/9w - 13 foot, 9/10w - 14foot, 10/11w - 15 foot.

Other sizes and rod lengths are available and commonly used, however, these are mainly as Double Handed Spey rods where a 16 to18 foot rod is not uncommon.

The reason behind adding the rod length to the description is so that the caster can select a suitable line for his or her rod and, at first glance, because with the shooting head types of lines, 3x the rod length is generally an ideal length.

However both the Overhead and the Spey Double Handed rod lines are designed around line weight or head weight size in grains.

The reason for a 3x length of a head is to produce the smoothes loop in the sky which, in turn, produces a higher line speed, which then produces a greater cast distance.

The thinner the head in diameter, eg a fast sinking head, the shorter this head can be and the fatter the head, eg a floating head, the longer it has to be, this is because of air drag on the head and the fatter the head, the slower the casting stroke.