On Dec 11, 4:17*pm, "Don Phillipson" wrote:
"Giles" wrote in message

...

I've been recommending this for years. *A four foot, quarter inch
dowel with six feet (to start) of yarn tied to the tip is an
exceptional teaching tool.

Dowels are too rigid: *

So is carbon fiber.....and boron.....and ....fiberglass......

a rod tip section is much better

well, if it's greenheart, I suppose.....maybe.

(and less likely to break during indoor use.)

hasn't happened yet.....but I'll watch for it. Any recommendations
for emergency reponse?

The right
thickness/weight/diameter of the yarn can be found only
by trial and error but this is worth the effort. *

Well, if it's greenheart, I suppose, maybe. On the other hand, with a
1/4" birch dowel the difference really don't amount to a hill of soft
****,eh?

If you have
enough space for the backcast,

I do, and then some, as a matter of fact.

you can cast acccurately
to at 15 ft. with yarn

Well, to be perfectly honest, the best I've been able to manage with a
four ft. dowel and six feet or so of yarn is about ten feet......but I
am perfectly willing to bow to your vastly greater experience with
greater lengths.

and the timing seems proportionate to
fly tackle on the water. *

My experience suggests that this is true. But then, the point is
probably lost on the neophyte fly-caster. After all, this is a tool
to give him or her an approximate idea of what it's like to cast with
a fly rod on the water, ainna? If he or she is in a position to
affirm that this is proportionate to fly tackle on the water then WTF
is the point of the lesson, ainna?!

IIRR Lee Wulff has written on this
topic.

Many people have. The world would be a much better place if many
fewer had written on this topic and every other imaginable one.

giles
who, if pressed, would probably admit, long before the punji sticks
made an appearance, that he really doesn't much give a **** what
virginia has to say on the subject.