Joy of others catching

[malevans]

On my last trip to Scotland I took the husband of my wifes best friend. He had only fished once before which was a shorefishing session we had during a shared family holiday in cornwall where he caught his only fish to date, a small pollock.

 

Well it was excellent he had to learn to fly cast from scratch, but despite early frustrations I have a photo of his first ever trout on the fly, a wee wee brownie. He finished the week in style when on the friday, using a olive nymph my wife had tied for him, he caught a cracking wild brownie of just on the 1lb mark, put a nice bend in his rod and a very big smile on his face. He caught 12 trout over three days of trout fishing.

 

The only tricky bit about teaching family and friends, and I have survived teaching my wife, is one actually needs to be a bit of a task master and nag bag for their own good.

[Tog]

Good stuff Malcolm, I try to introduce a few new anglers every year. Isn't 'teaching' fly casting hard! - you know it's done by feel but trying to get it over to a newbie!!!!, all the better for it when they catch their first fish. (shame its always bigger than the one you just caught?)

[malevans]

It can be a challenge, but not as bad as teaching wife or daughter to drive......then again

 

I always take newbies to a river rather than still water as the cast does not have to be perfect to swing a spider or similar around and that first elusive trout to appear. Neither are they psychologically defeated as they compare their first few casts with the expanse of water before them. The other thing I have found very useful is after a day or so with the trout rod, give them a 12 or 13ft double hander. They find it easier as they can push and pull on the handle and everything is a bit more relaxed and they tend to stop the back cast in right place. Then once they have that cracked say 1 to 2 hours(this worked really well with my wife and my her friends husband) i put them back on the trout rod and tell them to get the same snap into it. Seems to work really well.