What are we?

[Paul Arden]

I always have trouble sleeping. And then again waking up. Left to my own devices I would sleep once every 36 hours. But that’s no good for work or fishing. While some people were apparently born the wrong sex, I must have been born on the wrong planet.

Lots of good stuff there from Mark and Will to read. The old what, why and how also applies to as much to teaching as it does to exam tasks. I think this stuff we gravitate to over time and it would be strange if flycasting wasn’t like teaching any other physical action.

What I’ve always enjoyed about teaching flycasting is that we know where we want to go and in most cases we know we are going to get there. But there are many ways to get there. There are literally dozens, hundreds probably, of methods of travelling the road. This allows us to experiment wildly and yet still get where we want to be without too much drama.

There are some really good reasons to do this too. One is that it keeps life interesting for us, which definitely comes across in our lessons, but I think the most important reason is that it allows us to experiment and become better instructors. We are not robots teaching the same thing again and again but instead we are actually experimenting with each and every student.

I’ll tell them too! I’ll say “this is a technique I’ve heard about, or something I’ve been thinking about, and I’d like to give it a go. It may not work!” Etc. I’ve always enjoyed doing this. It a) takes the pressure off for it to work and b) the student helps you explore the technique too. It’s always nice to feel that you are walking down a less trod path and being useful providing feedback.

I’ve often said fish develop your flies for you. In the same way students develop your teaching methods for you.

It’s not that difficult to teach something you can do. It is very difficult to teach something you can’t do! Will mentioned something about instructors throwing 100’ and coaches throwing less. Based on the discussions we’ve been having here, considering coaches to be of higher level students, I would think that the coach would need to have been able to throw to a higher level at least at some point in his/her life. Much of the confusion over substance/style is because the teacher hasn’t taken the respective techniques to the extremes. Perhaps you could really learn to teach, as an example, the 170 without being able to do it. But the first few times your really going to be stumbling around in the dark without a candle.

Will catch up on the other stuff later.

Cheers, Paul

[Paul Arden]

I read the article on Freezing, Vince. I have a few thoughts on this. The first observation is that it’s very common for instructors to freeze the wrist, even to the extent of immobilising it. I’m not comfortable with immobilising it with bondage, but certainly freezing it is something we all do from time to time. Sometimes through conscious change, other times through change of grip.

I would also think that Delayed Rotation was a form of freezing. The Flip Flop is undoubtedly freezing the elbow from opening.

I think we are quite fortunate in flycasting in that we have a wide variety of casting strokes. Broadly in overhead we have vertical closed stance accuracy, open stance distance, the Oval or Belgian technique and the 170. We also have multiple planes, roll vs overhead, and a bunch of presentation casts many of which would be faults if unintentional (in fact all of them by definition).

I often go from one technique to another to solve a problem. In respect to this article making that jump between strokes can often be seen as a form of freezing. In other words if I’m struggling to delay rotation in a distance Cast, I teach the Switch Cast. If I want to stop excessive body rotation I might teach closed accuracy. Conversely if I want to teach a wide open domed 170 force application (defrosting ) I can teach a collapsed cast.

My method of teaching an experienced flycaster who has one fixed stroke is to build three, ultimately four, parallel strokes. Usually an untrained caster is open stance, generally fixed arc, for everything. So I bring out the targets and teach closed stance accuracy from the get-go. Afterwards I return to Open Stance but teach distance Casting proper (with weight shift!). I also teach the 0val Cast, however I spend less time on this unless someone has restrictive shoulder movement issues preventing Open Stance with a vertical rod plane; instead I go into all loop and rod planes as a separate exercise (this can be a very good way to “freeze” the wrist incidentally). Finally I bring in the stopless 170 (which I may have introduced earlier as an into-the-wind backcast, but now I build it as a complete stroke). The contrasts between Accuracy, Open Stance Distance and 170 are like three lanes on a motorway. Moving between lanes allows us to change gears. We can even overtake on the inside lane as they do here in Malaysia!

This gives me three or even four parallel strokes and I can often solve problems in one by moving to another. Having read this article I can see some similarities between this approach and freezing.

The other alternative of course, as well as freezing, is to exaggerate the movement. If someone is using too much wrist ask them to use even more wrist! If someone has problems with tails let’s explore tails and learn to throw them all the time! I often get people to throw very wide open loops incidentally. It’s much easier to be smooth with an open loop compared to a tight loop. Make big wide smooth open loops, with power, and then tighten down.

Got a lesson soon. I’ll have some fun with freezing.

Cheers, Paul

[VGB]

Hi Paul, I would fight for your right to identify as an alien

I thought Mark and Wills articles were excellent, pitched at the right level and informative.

It is very difficult to teach something you can’t do! Will mentioned something about instructors throwing 100’ and coaches throwing less. Based on the discussions we’ve been having here, considering coaches to be of higher level students, I would think that the coach would need to have been able to throw to a higher level at least at some point in his/her life.

It may be that his view at the point was UK centred. As you are aware, there are Angling Trust fishing coaches and several instructor/fishing/casting associations and the skills and knowledge assessment band for each is different. Speaking from a position of ignorance and hearsay, I would suggest that the AT coaching is generalist in nature and centred on introducing the community to fishing. Consequently, you are assessed on your teaching ability rather than your ability at a specific angling genre. The instructor associations mix their drinks by being either casting or casting/angling instructors and given the amount of different sub types of fly fishing in the country there's very few people that are specialists in all disciplines. It's a bit of a can of worms when you look at it and I stick to teaching casting and will tailor the casting to venue/species but it doesn't mean that I am a knowledgeable reservoir, saltwater or sea trout angler, I haven't put the time in.

Regards

Vince

[VGB]

The first freezing article was interesting in that the Bernstein sequence was found in most but not all experiments and I think it comes down to "it depends". I've had a bit of a bad year with my shoulder problems and have often needed a grown up to help me put my shirt on. At one point I became seriously worried enough to start teaching myself to cast with my non-dominant hand so that I could continue fishing. As I started out, I found that I had a floppy wrist just like any other beginner and the cause was that I'd frozen my torso rotation which is in accordance with the proposition that we freeze movement to simplify the movement skill. The unintended consequence was that to get the stroke length I was breaking the wrist. Fixing that problem introduced a tracking error due to the rotation that I could eliminate by aligning the back cast to a target but because it's conscious intervention, I'm struggling to get my eyes back to the forward target in time. I'm enjoying being my own student.

I agree that this adds a whole new dimension to teaching and makes the job much more interesting seeing the processes at work.

Enjoy your lesson, it's not illegal to undertake here but don't get caught

Regards

Vince

[Paul Arden]

Hi Vince,

The instructor associations mix their drinks by being either casting or casting/angling instructors

While this is certainly the claim by a few associations the reality is that there is very little examining in this regards. Back when I first joined APGAI I was certainly asked to give my fishing resume plus list any articles I had had published and so on. You do find the odd angling question and certain things are looked at. For example I remember one guy unsure of his footing in a river and it was noted that he had obviously little river fishing experience. Another was asked how/when to fish a Willy Gunn in his exam and from the reply he gave it was assumed that he had little salmon fishing experience. I suggested that they are asked to bring in their active fly boxes and we question them about certain flies. On my first exam (STANIC) I was asked to pretend I had just arrived and to start fishing with my fluff. I suppose they wanted to see if I fished the margins first. However all in all I would say one of the distinct weaknesses of all the associations is that you don’t need to be an experienced angler. I actually know of some successful CCI candidates who had only fished a stocked lake no bigger than a medium sized swimming pool, for fish that had been brought on the feed with bait, and with very little experience of doing even this! We are talking almost zero real fly fishing experience.

And if we go full circle back to the lack of fishing guides taking these certs, you can see why there is a wall there, when it is known that there are casting instructors who are for all purposes novice anglers. When the local expert guides are not CCIs, and novices are, then it’s a problem.

It’s a difficult one. FFI have skipped it completely. The UK associations have made a stab at it. While I was with AAPGAI I did discuss taking the association Internationally (but they had to fix the overhead portion of their exam first). One of the discussions I had was about an outstanding angler I knew in Croatia (maybe the best) who was interested in taking his DHD exam. However he doesn’t fish for Salmon using it (and it’s a “Salmon” exam). Instead he fishes for Asp and is a hands-down expert. In the discussions that followed it was thought that this would be acceptable. And then Bernd wrote an FP about AAPGAI and the shit hit the fan

In 25 years I have not once had anyone come to a lesson as a referral from any of the associations of which I’ve been a member. They've always come through shops, reservoirs, other instructors, Sexyloops and so on.


My biggest problem with the left hand has been trying to force the backcast by moving the elbow as opposed to using the effort to stop the elbow and allowing the wrist to naturally flip over. I think it was last year I was having a long chat with John and Phil about blocking, when I realised I was doing this on the right but not the left. That was a major breakthrough for me.

Cheers, Paul

[VGB]

Hi Paul, I've seen a recent claim by a well known guide that you can master the art of casting within a couple of hours, and I know another guide who can walk the walk when it comes to casting that says that a guide only has to be able to find a fish stupid enough to take the clients fly. Personally speaking, I don't think that you can call yourself an instructor unless you fish with rods between #2 and #9 and made of hazel, bamboo, glass and carbon in the same season

[Paul Arden]

Well I have a thing in this department too! I don’t think you can properly guide a type of fishing/water until you’ve fished it for 3000 days. 15-20 seasons day in day out. I got away with breaking that rule here, and started guiding with just over 1500 days under my belt. But I was very clear about it and that it’s still an exploration — and quite frankly anyone fly fishing here at the moment is still pioneering this place. The only reason I managed to get away with it was because no one else had done it! Otherwise I would have never have even contemplated it.

I could guide NZ, apart from the legal framework of course, and Stillwater trout. That’s it. I’m pretty rare in that I’ve got more than one. The problem I have nowadays is when I get to 3000 days I feel it’s time to move on

I’m getting pretty close now actually, but I’ll do five more years here then the plan is to move on and start again.

Mastering the art of flycasting in 2 hrs is total BS of course. But it should be enough to get someone started. There are no stupid fish here. In fact far from it; we have fish that actually exhibit signs of being intelligent.

Cheers, Paul

[VGB]

Between the pair of us, I suspect we've eliminated the known world from fly casting instruction

[Paul Arden]

Incidentally, Vince, I was thinking about talking about the 2hr beginner’s lesson earlier, because I’ve given that a lot.

Here is what I teach. Bearing in mind that you might only get this person once. That’s just how life is sometimes.

They need to be able to make a roll cast pick up, into an overhead false cast while slipping line, and then delivering the fly with a checked shoot. They need to be able to perform this off both shoulders to deal with the wind.

So: Triangle Method. PUALD. Shooting line. Roll Cast both shoulders. Back to overhead, false casting. Putting it together roll cast pick up, false casting and delivery, both shoulders.

Possibly some will learn about dealing with the wind and altering trajectories. Some might also learn to change direction on the Roll Cast. It’s possible to introduce other aspects and drills too, however time is limited and they must be able to perform the top in order to fish.

But also they need to learn about: safety (brief talk), knots (sometimes), leaders, tackle, the retrieve, setting the hook, playing and landing fish, fish handling, types of flies and methods of fishing them. That can be covered over biscuits and beer during the break.

And finally, if we start with the Triangle Method, more often than not we can finish off with the Double Haul.

That’s a busy lesson. No one is going to “master the art” in two hours but they should be able to catch a fish on fly by the end of it.

Cheers, Paul

[Paul Arden]

Between the pair of us, I suspect we've eliminated the known world from fly casting instruction