Trout and Salmon Review Spey Casting Made Easy

Trout and Salmon Magazine review of Spey Casting DVD

SPEY CASTING MADE EASY DVD by Ally Gowans

The claim in the title is kept uppermost as Alastair Gowans, inventor of the Ally's Shrimp and Cascade flies, emphasises and re-emphasises how easy it is - or should be - to spey cast (with a 14 ft Thomas & Thomas his weapon of choice; very nice). This he does at length and in easy-to-navigate sections on the main DVD menu: simple roll cast, single spey, double spey, snake roll etc. Yes, he makes the snake roll look easy. Well it looked easy on the DVD, with Ally's calming voice talking it through. But it proved less easy for me a few days later in Dumfries and Galloway, on a day when the isobars were tightly packed and the autumn leaves were not so much falling from the trees as being blown horizontally between opposite banks of the river. Seriously, though, this is a comprehensive resume of casting styles and while nothing will ever match one-to-one tuition on the river (Gowans is an AAPGAI and FFF Master fly-fishing instructor), this would come a close second. - Henry Giles


The DVD is available price £20.00 (free P&P to UK mainland addresses). To order contact Ally. Or it can obtained from a variety of other stockists, retail outlets or via mail order.