On Oct 26, 9:52 pm, "Tom Nakashima" wrote:
"riverman" wrote in message

oups.com...





Too many kids in HK spend their time playing video games or shopping
in malls and not making a relationship with the natural world, so I
convinced my superiors that a tremendous contribution to the future of
these kids, and the urban jungle in general, would be to take 17 of
them fly fishing in New Zealand and give them some reason to want to
preserve healthy, green natural places for life. So I get to take 17
kids to the North Island in March for a 5-day canoe/fly fishing trip
next March. :-)

They will all be newbies to ff...some will have done some spincast or
deep sea fishing, but I get to provide training from the ground up.
They all will be provided 5-wt travel rods, with good quality WF line
and all the basic acoutrements, courtesy of a good discount at LL Bean
(anyone know of a company that might _donate_ eqiopment?) I will be
meeting with them for 4 separate 1-hour sessions until mid February,
when we get to spend 4 hours together in one big block. After that, we
fly to NZ and to the river.

My question: what would be a good pace of ff lessons that would fit
into this timeframe? Its got to be the basics....just enough to get
them on the water, but not so much to overwhelm them.

I am thinking of the following:
Mtg 1) Introduce the gear, how to assemble and care for it, learn
basic knots (Imporoved Fisherman's for securing the fly, and Surgeon's
for replacing the tippet). Differentiate between types of flies
(dries, streamers, 'others'). Talk about C&R, pinch down some barbs.
Mtg 2) Brief demonstration of casting and nymphing, practice roll
casting (I think they will be more successful with this as beginners,
and it will work with nymphing better)
Mtg 3) Housekeeping meeting about what gear to pack.
Mtg 4) Brief lesson on how to read structure, introduce the phases of
growth of mayflies and stoneflies, have them look at some basic flies
(WB, GRHE, PT, copper john, upwing dry). Practice casting with meter
sticks and yarn.
Big meeting) Practice casting in the gym.
What do you guys think? And can anyone recommend any excellent online
resources I can show and link to on our trip webpage?
--riverman

Great that you're taking the kids out for week of adventure. I'm sure it
will be relaxing that can take a break away from their video games.

Here's one of the useful fun things I did when teaching kids to fly-cast.

I parted off 3/4" round wooden dowels to 2' long. I put a stop, a wood disk
about 3" in dia. 6" up one side of the dowel. You'll have to drill a 3/4"
hole in the middle and glue (hot glue gun or equil.) to make the attachment.
I then put a plastic cylinder 3" long x 2.5" dia. and mounted it on the
dowel.
I had the kids line up and take turns flicking the plastic cylinder off the
stick. I had another adult receiver across from the caster to catch the
cylinder.
I'm amazed how fast it taught them to make the correct casting arc, and
stroke. And even more amazed when I strung up a fly-rod how they were able
to remember the casting stroke to sling the line. Some of the kids were
throwing beautiful tight loops at 30 ft.
-tom- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

This sounds like a great idea! I was actually considering using large
wooden spoons and having them flick ping-pong balls. It would get them
used to knowing when to stop on the front cast, but your gizmo sounds
like it would work better, since they have to come forward to 2:00 to
get the ring to come up and off the dowel.

Any nifty tricks for the backcast? Other than the 'yarn on a stick'
thing?

--riverman