Imagine a newbie...or 20

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

On Oct 26, 3:11 am, riverman wrote:
What do you guys think?

You didn't mention the ages of the students, but I'll assume early to
mid teens?

My first thought is that you skipped over or omitted some of the more
"cerebral" aspects of fly fishing. If these kids are familiar with
other types of fishing, it might be worth a mention as to how FFing is
different and why anyone would want to do it vs. baiting a hook and
catching bigger fish. I haven't a clue as to the culture or mindset
of kids in HK; but I'd think some background on the thought,
philosophy, and goals of FFing might be a good idea before moving into
hardware & technique. You're the teacher, though, so I have no doubt
you know your kids better than anyone here.

Coincidentally, I recently started teaching a graduate-level course at
a local university, and I've come to the conclusion that either I
really suck as a teacher, or my students are dumber than dirt. I
spent three sessions teaching & reviewing some basic principles, then
dumbed down the test as far as I thought possible. The class average
was still 46. So I reviewed the test in class, gave them written
answers, changed all of the numbers and gave them the same test again
as a two-week take home quiz. A lot of 'em still tanked it.

I tell ya, I have to admire guys like you who not only possess the
knowledge, but can successfully impart that knowledge to others. God
knows I can't.

Joe F.

"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

rb608 typed:
On Oct 26, 3:11 am, riverman wrote:
What do you guys think?

You didn't mention the ages of the students, but I'll assume early to
mid teens?

My first thought is that you skipped over or omitted some of the more
"cerebral" aspects of fly fishing. If these kids are familiar with
other types of fishing, it might be worth a mention as to how FFing is
different and why anyone would want to do it vs. baiting a hook and
catching bigger fish. I haven't a clue as to the culture or mindset
of kids in HK; but I'd think some background on the thought,
philosophy, and goals of FFing might be a good idea before moving into
hardware & technique. You're the teacher, though, so I have no doubt
you know your kids better than anyone here.

Coincidentally, I recently started teaching a graduate-level course at
a local university, and I've come to the conclusion that either I
really suck as a teacher, or my students are dumber than dirt. I
spent three sessions teaching & reviewing some basic principles, then
dumbed down the test as far as I thought possible. The class average
was still 46. So I reviewed the test in class, gave them written
answers, changed all of the numbers and gave them the same test again
as a two-week take home quiz. A lot of 'em still tanked it.

I tell ya, I have to admire guys like you who not only possess the
knowledge, but can successfully impart that knowledge to others. God
knows I can't.

Joe, I feel your pain - I mean it could be either or both issues causing the
problem. Just remember you can't cram ten pounds of **** into a five pound
bag (gawd knows I've tried when dressing.) This is true even if you do have
the ten pound bag and the top is held shut.

If I've learned anything in my years here on earth, it's that classroom
training leaves a lot to be desired. It's a necessary process, maybe the
most efficient, but not always the most effective. If you sat with the
individuals on a one-on-one basis, chances are fairly decent you'd find
which crowbar opened the lid. In the other cases, you'd could also solve the
problem (for them and the rest of us) by bludgeoning them with the crowbar.
--
TL,
Tim
-------------------------
http://css.sbcma.com/timj

On Oct 26, 11:06 am, "Tim J."
wrote:
Joe, I feel your pain - I mean it could be either or both issues causing the
problem.

In my professional years, the chasm between engineers and architects
is well known and often a source of both humor and confrontation. So
now you have me, as left-brained, mathematical, and analytical as they
come, trying to teach engineering statics to architecture grad
students, one of whom has a background as a sculptor. I really don't
think I'm even speaking a language they understand. :-)

Joe F.

"riverman" wrote

Too many kids ...... spend their time playing video games or shopping
in malls and not making a relationship with the natural world


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





This is absolutely wonderful ....applause, applause


My only thoughts are to make sure the camping and relationship with the
natural world remain the priority and don't get buried under too much B.S.
about casting and mechanics. This might be as much about picking an exact
destination as classroom instruction. The kids that fall in love WILL
learn to cast, you won't be able to stop them, be a match maker not a task
master.

--------

Last summer while fishing the Firehole, a woman without waders or fishing
vest and waving the rod in a manner that suggested no previous practice
worked down towards me. When she got close she asked, "How long is your lead
line supposed to be?"

Being nearly deaf, I asked her to repeat, which she did, and I then realized
that "lead line" was leader. I got out and as I walked to her she explained
that she had just bought a "fly fishing kit" at the Old Faithful store but
didn't know anything about the knots and how to rig it. She had simply tied
an overhand knot in the fly line, leaving a couple inches of tag, around a
piece of fine level mono for a "lead line."

I dug out a new Rio 7 1/2 ft 4X leader, undid her efforts, and tied on the
leader with a nail-less nail knot. Then I looked at the #12 EHC she had been
sold and replaced it with a #18 Entjes Emerger. I gave her a tip or two on
what tippet to get and how to tie a surgeons knot and then some brief
instruction on down and across wet fly swinging, encouraging her not to try
to get it out too far and to worry about fishing, not casting.

I took her a short distance to some good water to fish from the bank, told
her I'd be right downstream if she had questions and went on my way.

Within minutes a yell turned my head and she was fast to an 8 inch Firehole
Brown Trout, her smile wide as the Yellowstone sky.

--------

The purpose of that little story is to point out that she was an absolute
newbie, but it took very little "teaching" to get her into fish and have her
hooked probably for life, because the Firehole in early June is a generous
river. Find the kids a generous river.

Myron,

I have contacted a friend who teaches middle school in Maine. He is
an avid fly fisher and a couple of years ago he took on the daunting
task of teaching his kids fly fishing. I gave him a couple of old
rods and reels, and many roffians also donated stuff. In fact, each
fly swap for over a year had the participants tying one extra fly for
his students.

He is also active in helping to teach kids fly fishing in the summer
with a program sponsored by the guide association and other givers.
He should be a good source for some dos and donts, and good advice on
where to start and what to include.

Will forward his e-mail.

Dave

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

On Oct 26, 9:48 pm, rb608 wrote:

Coincidentally, I recently started teaching a graduate-level course at
a local university, and I've come to the conclusion that either I
really suck as a teacher, or my students are dumber than dirt. I
spent three sessions teaching & reviewing some basic principles, then
dumbed down the test as far as I thought possible. The class average
was still 46. So I reviewed the test in class, gave them written
answers, changed all of the numbers and gave them the same test again
as a two-week take home quiz. A lot of 'em still tanked it.

LOL. Welcome to my world. Regularly I think "God, this kids are
CLUELESS! Someone really ought to teach them somethin...d'Oh!

Its a strange profession. On one hand, people are conditioned to
learn...we're hard-wired to observe and imitate until we internalize
stuff. And if something is inherently interesting, learning takes
place all by itself....just look at the level of mastery kids have of
technology; programming, hacking, using...all without ever having
taken a class or having any formalized instruction.

On the other hand, they can sit there while you show them a dozen ways
to see something; you can get them involved, have them present to each
other, stand and explain, do problems, etc etc, and on the test they
perform as if they have never been there before.

Most of the craft is in making them interested, then getting out of
their way. I think a really good teacher can achieve that 80-90% of
the time...the rest of the time, everyone is just doing what they are
trained to do, with a certain level of forgiveness for each other.
Pretty much all of the professional development I have ever done that
was of value was geared toward how to pique their interest, whereas
all of the training I received in school was about terminology,
content and management...the least useful things of all.


I tell ya, I have to admire guys like you who not only possess the
knowledge, but can successfully impart that knowledge to others. God
knows I can't.


Sometimes I can't either. :-)

Meanwhile, I'm happy to talk with you anytime about ideas, techniques,
etc, if you want. I've been at this for awhile and I tend to get
through to more kids than I lose. Do you have my email address?

--riverman

On Oct 27, 12:39 am, "Larry L" wrote:
"riverman" wrote

Too many kids ...... spend their time playing video games or shopping
in malls and not making a relationship with the natural world
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

This is absolutely wonderful ....applause, applause

My only thoughts are to make sure the camping and relationship with the
natural world remain the priority and don't get buried under too much B.S.
about casting and mechanics. This might be as much about picking an exact
destination as classroom instruction. The kids that fall in love WILL
learn to cast, you won't be able to stop them, be a match maker not a task
master.

--------

Last summer while fishing the Firehole, a woman without waders or fishing
vest and waving the rod in a manner that suggested no previous practice
worked down towards me. When she got close she asked, "How long is your lead
line supposed to be?"

Being nearly deaf, I asked her to repeat, which she did, and I then realized
that "lead line" was leader. I got out and as I walked to her she explained
that she had just bought a "fly fishing kit" at the Old Faithful store but
didn't know anything about the knots and how to rig it. She had simply tied
an overhand knot in the fly line, leaving a couple inches of tag, around a
piece of fine level mono for a "lead line."

I dug out a new Rio 7 1/2 ft 4X leader, undid her efforts, and tied on the
leader with a nail-less nail knot. Then I looked at the #12 EHC she had been
sold and replaced it with a #18 Entjes Emerger. I gave her a tip or two on
what tippet to get and how to tie a surgeons knot and then some brief
instruction on down and across wet fly swinging, encouraging her not to try
to get it out too far and to worry about fishing, not casting.

I took her a short distance to some good water to fish from the bank, told
her I'd be right downstream if she had questions and went on my way.

Within minutes a yell turned my head and she was fast to an 8 inch Firehole
Brown Trout, her smile wide as the Yellowstone sky.

--------

The purpose of that little story is to point out that she was an absolute
newbie, but it took very little "teaching" to get her into fish and have her
hooked probably for life, because the Firehole in early June is a generous
river. Find the kids a generous river.

Excellent advice Larry, the 'generous river' advice is right-on. We'll
be fishing the Mohaka, fairly generous by NZ standards. Roger posted a
TR about the lower stretch a few years back where he and I fished. He
was casting a copper john from shore down the length of a long riffly
rapid, and caught about a dozen of the biggest browns of his life on
the first walk-through. We'll be about 50 miles upstream of that
stretch but using the same technique. I'll get the kids some CJs,
GRHEs, WBs, EHCs and maybe some upwing dries, then show them how to
let the nymph swing around. Before we get to the river, to get them
used to the feel of setting the hook, playing the fish, and releasing
safely, we will visit and fish a hatchery pond near Taupo.

My next big task is the gear. Of course, choosing gear is a topic for
endless discussion, but Bean's is giving me a 30% discount on their
catalogue rates, so unless I can find a better rate for equivalent or
better quality stuff, I'm going to order from them. I'm getting a good
quality beginner setup, and allowing anyone who wants to upgrade
components to do so if they pay the difference. So far, the kit I have
put together is this:

9ft 5wt Quest II 4pc rod (its not listed on the online catalogue, but
the rep in Maine said they had them in store. Travel rods are a
necessity)
Quest II LA reel 5/6 wt (I hope this doesn't turn out to be a tin/
plastic POS)
SA Headstart WF5F line (actually 5.5 wt, for beginners; its also not
on the online catalogue)
Stocked Lanyard (with nippersm, 3x and 4x tippet, floatant, strike
indicators and forcepts)
Bean's standard 1x3x5 fly box
Assortment of a dozen flies from Bean's, plus another 10 or so from
NZ.
Extra 3-pack of 4x leaders, since beginners tend to mangle these.

The total cost (pre-discount) is $250 pp. With the discount and
shipping, its just at $200 each, and I think the quality is good
enough to allow them to continue to develop their skills. If anyone
has any suggestions for better line, or a better rod for that price,
I'm glad for suggestions. Or if any of you can offer pro-deals or
discounts, I'm happy to put in a several-thousand dollar order.

Anyone interested in tying up sets of 10 (0r 20) flies for the kids?
I'll send you a "Thank You" certificate from the school. :-)

--riverman