Stillwater,
Thanks for your reply....I think you are on to something.  I was practicing yesterday.  My Perry Poke anchor placement needed a lot of work and it was helpful to get the fly upstream of my intended path.  The one thing I notice is my d-loop seems to be ready to go before it has straightened out my sink tip and this unstraightened sinktip seems to come out unruley.  If I wait a little longer for it to straighen out I blow anchors or have the bottom leg of the D sag and lose energy.

The interesting thing that I noticed in the video is that my sink tip has straightened and even has began to skitter back before delivery.  In the video I am using a different head than usual...it is essentially the same mass but 2or3ft shorter than my usual line and I seldomly had the above issues with it.  Watching yesterday my usual line rarely straigtens my sinktip.

Sometimes, the sinktip that seems to be straight comes out a little funny but I think in that case it is a little to abrubt power app that gives a small amount of tailing loop.  Lastly, I occasionally think the fly may have come to rest in the gravel and comes out a little funny.

Thanks a lot Ed.  I have fucussed so hard on laying out nice smooth lines for my set that I really forgot about where I was puting my fly.  Watching your vids has been a lot of my influence since starting a year ago...any critique of my stroke?

Thanks for all your past help here.  I've really improved my feel for loading the rod and delivering at the proper time. I'm getting it enough that 90% of my casts come out with very good speed, power and have a nice tight loop.  My comfortable, popped cast goes about 80 ft with a 540  skagit compact, t11 in 10' and weighted fly.

I've developed this problem... A fully popped cast with nice tight loops that see the sink tip flutter, curly q around and sometimes foul the head.  The cast looks great, feels great until right before the sink tip is to turn over at the very end.  The sink tips doesn't lay out nice and straight.  My cast distance is good on these funny ones.  I put on a SA version of the skagit compact in the video I show below  and I didn't see this happen nearly as often(didn't occur in the video), but I really think it is a technique issue. My friend says the fly is fishing but it is driving me nuts.

http://youtu.be/-GLISWai1ag

Just a question for you guys that can explain all this Skagit casting technique.  There are many styles and versions of the casts I'll describe so bear with me.  If you watch most guys on a C-spey, they start with the rod on the water and derive a lot of load off of water tension.  If you watch Ed Ward, for example, perform a double spey he starts with the rod well off the water and performs a well elevated, level sweep.  The cspey rips water at first and is deriving a lot of load from the water.  The elevated c-spey has the line swinging well outward from the start due to the centrifugal forces.  It seems to me that the weight of the line and the outward pull of CForce is the primary rod loader.  Then I watch guys teach like Tom Larimer who even on the C-spey has people start the sweep with a lift up to the imaginary sombrero before the sweep.  His sweep shows more of the centrifugal force load with the line canting well out early in the sweep.  I know you can't totally separate the two because all casts have both loads but my contention is that some have more centrifugal load than others and vice versa.

Question is...how does this factor into your casts and is this anything you ponder.  Or is this just different styles.  Is there a time where one purposely wants one load versus the other.  It seems to me one needs to understand the difference in order to achieve the proper load on all of his/her different casts. I may be explaining this poorly but I hope you can understand me.
Thanks,
Mike

They would also comment that their Pokes never seemed to load well and their doubles and C speys would sometimes make the rod feel soggy.  This is due to the fact that the double spey and C spey naturally have a broader sweep than the Pokes.  The rod was being overloaded during the C spey and Double spey but never got much load during the pokes.  It seems more people place blame on their lines being wrong or their rod too soft or too fast

I often come across this issue with some water types.  Some water types certainly seem to overload my rod...in that situation I start perry poking. Ive found some success in starting the sweep above the water a couple feet in order to eliminate some stick. Why does the Cspey  get over loaded and what is the fix...frankly I don't entirely understand it.

That's great thanks for the link.  Love the Thompson dearly.  The fish also need:
1.  A serious look at the impact of the commercial chum fisheries.
2.  A serious look at the fact that the fishery was opened last season on only a 40-60% chance of reaching 800 fish.
3.  A look at the logic of justifying the opening due to a belief that the "population has stabilized at a new lower level".
4.  A look at why a fragile C&R wild fishery would allow bait.
 
To me it sounds like balancing commercial interests and sport angling interests.  Trying to make everyone happy will end in extinction.  For everyone that thinks Canada has it all figured out compared to Washington, I will site this example.  The Skagit system didn't open with an expectation of roughly 5,000-6,000 fish.  Most of the Puget Sound rivers would have opened under the Thompson logic.

I was casting my decho 7130 today and had some results I can't explain. I have been using a 540 and 570 compact on it to cast 10'-12' of t-11 tips. Today I tried a 540 switch which is 20' compared to the 25' on the compacts.  I really liked the pop and power on the switch.  Used it with 10' and 12' of t-11 with yarn and a small split shot on it and it turned everything over great.  I really didn't notice a huge preference between the two tip lengths.  I liked how compact my stroke was feeling and felt I could employ more of the continuos motion cast as compared to stop and go.  This set-up made working the lower hand feel more natural.  

When I put on my 540 compact with 10' t-11 I had trouble consistantly(as I have had in the past) getting the anchor to come out enough to deliver.  One thing I key on is seeing my fly or tip "reverse" right before pulling the trigger. Often this didn't happen  with the longer line.  The longer line makes me feel like I have to "stop and go" more and wait a bit longer between turnover and delivery.  Often I over rotate waiting for the tip and fly to look right.  Because I was wondering about length and how it relates to everything, I decided to pull 3' of my head into the guides so my 540 compact was effectively 22'.  All of a sudden my tip and fly were reversing again.  

The only thing I don't like about the switch, is the fact that I have more trouble on my double spey where the rod starts off the water before the sweep.  Often I blow the anchor with some of the line off the surface of the water.  The switch for me made the stroke feel like a"CM" cast and the timing felt easier.  Does a softer full loading rod like the decho come to play in all this?

 Maybe I'm nuts but I figured someone could explain this.

Like I've said to my friends many times "sometimes good fishing is bad fishing". Sounds like you guys have better numbers than out here in WA state.  Thanks for sharing.

Thank you!  That makes sense and is important for my foundation of understanding.  Trust me when I say that I have read some of my faulty principals presented as law(such as tip doesn't form d-loop) from very reliable sources...at least in the eyes of a novice.  There are probably great spey casters that don't fully understand skagit casting..  eventhough they can pull the skagit casts off quite well.

One more thought while I have you all... when I search past threads, I find Ed saying that 2.75-3 ratio of line to rod length to be the best "all around" skagit system.  Why do you factor the sink tip into the equation(at least at equal emphasis) when it doesn't have much effect on the sweep and it doesn't really become part of the D-loop.  A 13' rod would stand to work well with 39' of head + sink tip based on the formula, but I'm guessing it wouldn't cast very well with a 15' head and a 24' sink tip.  Conversely it would cast much different with a 35' head and a 4' sink tip.  If the factor is based on a "normal" sinktip length(10-15') then I would think the focus would be more on proper head length and weight.  I wouldn't think 3' of added tip length would be balanced in the system by simply using a 3' shorter head.

Great post Ed.  Thanks.  I gravitated to the 10' thing as a standard for me because of the MOW tips I purchased when starting out.

Thanks Ed, that really helps.  The turnover factor of sinktips for the size of flies being used is not well stated by most in the business.

Is it safe to say that going up from a t-11 to a t-14(same length) would make me want to go down in head weight by 30 grains(ex. from a 600 to a 570)?

Secondly, does going from a 10' sink tip to a 13' sink tip(same material) make the optimum head length shorten by 3'...assuming the setup was perfectly matched with the 10 footer?

I understand that you experts likely cast a bunch of stuff that is crossing over with ease because of good technique and an ability to adjust...I'm just trying to understand this in order to be making the correct adjustments when trying to dial things.  I don't want to be doing stuff that is 180 degrees from correct.

Thanks camo, all great points, especially the one of keeping all the tips at rod length.  I remember a day I was really casting well(practice) with 10' of t-11.  I decided to go up to  12' of t14 in order to see how it worked and everything went to hell.  Then I started reading that there is only one inch per second difference between the two materials and that extra sink rate could be nullified by the greater diameter on the t-14.  Then I started to wonder why change at all?

I've been getting my two rods  dialed in  with the proper skagit compact for my skagit casting stroke.  Going up and down in weight can make a big difference and eventually the match is found.  I have been trying to keep the sink tip and fly constant in this search and for developing my casts.  I use a Decho 8133 with a Skagit Comp. 600 and my  Decho 7130 with a Skagit Comp. 540(it also rocks with Airflo Swith 540).  While working on my cast and trying to dial my lines, I have kept my sink tip constant at 10ft of t-11.  My question and confusion is on choosing the right tip and how that affects line choice.  When I look at the difference in t-11 and t-14 it is only a inch per second difference and the added diameter of the t-14 could make it no different in moving water...so my question is, how and why do you all choose different lengths and densities of sink tip?  Does the t-14 help carry a bigger fly as compared to the t-11?and how does going between the two densities affect the optimum skagit compact head choice?  Then the last factor is the different lengths and how that affects every thing.  

Sorry for the long winded question but frankly I find a ton of contradictory information on the net from both experts and line companies.  I see experts say  you factor the tips into the grain window and others say you don't.  Some say the sink tip length factors into the proper ratio of line length vs. rod length and others don't.  

Thanks for the informative site and I hope you guys can help simplify this to a fairly green caster.