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TROUT Tip – Eliminate pressure
Along the lines of keeping it fun, pressure is not fun for anyone learning something new. This is just as true for kids as it is for adults. If your student flubs a cast, help them brush it off by encouraging them to try again or suggest a tip to help on the next one. If their fly lands in…
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TROUT Tip – Make it fun
If you’re motivated to teach fly fishing to kids, it is imperative to keep it fun. Sure, we’d like them to perfect the cast and find joy in matching the hatch and catching fish, but in the end, it’s all about making them want to come back to it. If lessons keep coming at them at warp speed, they’ll quickly lose interest. Make it fun…
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TROUT Tip – Teaching
Teaching about fly fishing is the ultimate win-win. You get to pass along a craft, a tradition and a respect for species and wild places. Then, in return, you get better. Teaching someone something you love often creates opportunities for you to slow down to explain, reinforcing the lesson and cementing it in your brain in…
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The True Cast – Teaching vs. Telling
When it comes to stream etiquette, knowing the difference is key. “Almost everyone loves to be taught how to fish. And almost everyone hates to be told how to fish.” I say that all the time, because it’s a lesson I learned by trial and error over 30 years—through printed pages in magazines, interacting in…
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The True Cast – My money is on the frog hunter…
(This will make sense at the end of the story) Here are two true-life scenarios that played out in the past couple weeks in the waters where I fish and call home. Situation 1: A father comes into the fly shop, hires out a guide trip for his two sons, ages 12 and 14. Dad…
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The True Cast: Upstream, downstream.
Some thoughts on teaching kids about fly fishing.
Some thoughts on teaching kids about fly fishing. I’m often asked by eager parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, what is the right age to introduce a kid to fly fishing? My answer is always the same: It depends on the kid! And, more important, it depends on how you define “introduce to fly fishing.” A…
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Teach the kids to row their own watercraft
What do you do when the kids get a bit older and you're tired of handing out snack after snack on big river trips? Get them their own watercraft. We all want our kids to learn the river from their own perspective and to safely make mistakes and corrections while the consequences are low. The…
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