Walter & Group..
From Charlie Shedd:
Dear Gordy Molly is right on Something I use are small rubber
ducks I have found that youngsters really like them Given a choice of
hula hoops or ducks, the ducks win all the time.. They can also be
used to help a person make a quick cast and change of direction
casts
charlie
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Charlie: I like those ducks !
That gets to the subject of TEACHING-AIDS and "props" for teachlng fly casting in the field or pond.
One that works really well with kids, is a rubber fish. We tied mono to it so we could have a moving target. Then I glued a trimmed sheet of Velcro to its back. It made a fantastic moving target, because the yarn fly would stick to it leaving no doubt as to the "catch".
Kids seem to respond well to teaching when you make it either a game, competition or both. Best to tailor the difficulty of the task to the ages and casting level.
Games work for adults, too. One of Lefty's tricks is to use a mouse trap. The idea is to sharpen accuracy by having the students see if they can spring it with a weighted fly. Bob andreae and I tried that once whilc casting with him, and found that that is NOT EASY ! Helps visually to paint the trap gold or yellow.
When I have a student who casts with an out of control wrist, flopping the back cast back and down with a wide loop, one of the tricks which I sometimes use is a paper plate and a clothes pin. I fasten the plate to a tree branch behind the caster with the clothes pin and challenge him to hit it with his fly on the back cast.
Sometimes a bad teaching situation can turn into a "teaching aid". A couple of years ago, Bob Andreae and I taught a group of ladies from the "LADIES LET'S GO FISHING, the NO YELLING school of fishing" at the IGFA in Dania. The only place they gave us was the little pond right outside the building. That had a steep earthen berm with bushes. As the ladies made their casts, any back cast which wasn't sufficiently high, would get hung up in the bushes and ground cover.
They learned TOOT SWEET to make nice high back casts !
I remember learning that a small pin-point target gains more accuracy than a big one. This can be any bright colored small object placed in the center of a 30" ring.
Last April, Lefty, Jim Valle and I gave a public demo and did teaching in New Jersey at a pond which we set up with all sorts of casting challenges. We had twenty or so casting spots on the shore each one of which had its target out on the pond. As a target, we even used a plastic gold colored fish supended just below the water surface. Some of those casts were really difficult..... casts way under branches, between trees, no back cast room, around corners, out at a distance, etc., etc. We had a point system and score card for each caster. Each caster went casting from numbered point to point rotating all around the pond. (Every once in a while one of the trout in the pond would strike the yarn flies)
A glass calm pond can be a teaching aid, too. One of my little trics to teach smoothness of pickup and then translate that to smooth casting, is to have the student lay the fly line out on the pond and try to make a water haul with as little disturbance of the water as possible. Once achieved with no bubbles, I have the student turn around so the line is back behind him.... then make forward casts the same way, leaving no bubbles as the line leaves the water. After becoming really good at that, it's amazing how much smoother the caster becomes with aerial casting.
While teaching trout fishermen to sharpen their methods for salt water flats fishing (where the fish are sometimes moving a LOT faster than they appear to be swimming) I started in a grassy area surrounded by trees. There were lots of squirrels running about. It was a park where kids often throw nuts to feed the critters. We made a game out of having the caster place a yarn fly in front of each squirrel. then, to my amazement, the squirrels made their own game of trying to catch the fly !
These things make it fun .... even for the teacher !
I'm always looking for little teaching aids, props and tricks. Hopefully you will have some to share with us.
Gordy
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