FlyFishing with the Grandson

                                      Teaching fly fishing to everyone that wanted to learn from my wife to my boys and my friends it was time to teach my grandson. Started out teaching him how to hold the rod properly then (like a firm hand shake grip.) 

With a blank rod letting him flip the rod back and forth learning the forward cast and the back ward cast, with the forward cast stopping at 10:00 o’clock and the back cast stopping at 2:00. With this it teaches you the feeling of the Fly rod and the action of the rod. Once you have a scene of control of the action. I will put the fly line on through the guides and set it up like we were fishing but I did not use a hook, I tied on a piece of yarn or cloth as a fly. Then I teach him how to load the rod.

  Teaching him to load the rod, without the feeling of the fly rod bending back and forth in your hand (the action of the rod) you will not get the proper line cast. Now you need enough line out to make a proper cast and without having any slack in the line, With the rod tip close to the ground or water starting your back cast bringing everything into motion and up with a sudden stop at 10:00 O’clock and the rod bending and your line loading.

 Start your forward cast with the motion going forward and another sudden stop at 2:00 O’clock then starting the backwards cast all with keeping a stiff wrist. Some people can do this with a loose wrist but it is best to start out with a stiff wrist and use the forearm. 

After teaching him these techniques and letting him practice in the back yard. I had setup some paper plates and some buckets for him to aim at. The trick here is to get the yarn so called (fly) in the plates or bucket so many points for each.

We made a game out of it, with two rods going and a little side bet me and him set out to have a little fun.  After a couple of hours and some twisted lines he was flipping that yarn and putting it were he wanted it to go. He was stoked.



It’s all good on the ground but now the real test, moving water. A whole new game, letting him warm up a bit. I began to show him how to control the line in the water. 
Flipping it up stream, letting it hit the water then showing him how to flip just the fly line up stream so you have the fly’s moving down stream first.

With everything floating down stream and watching the strike indicator, letting him know that once the strike indicator goes under to pick up slightly if there is a fish at that moment the fish will feel the tension and take off (no need to set the hook he’s already done that for you)  then the fighting began. YAHOO FISH ON! But if the strike indicator goes under and there is no fish it’s more likely to be the moss or rock on bottom of the river. But if the indicator does not go under and keeps traveling downstream (I call it a free pass) we just start the same process all over.

Letting him practice his casting, after he had done this for a while he then started to get frustrated from not catching anything.

I stood next to him and showed him how to do it from step one but this time I was behind him and we both had the fly rod in our hands showing him as we both did it, it was the second cast and BAM!! the fish hit and we were fighting a fish. I let go and let him have the rod. The look in his eyes was priceless. (You know where you get the chills up and down the back of your neck.)

A few more times with him and a few fish later his confidence grew to where he wanted to try this on his own. For the next few minutes I let him do this and was talking him through it. It wasn’t more than 45 minutes later he had done it. He hooked his first fish on a fly rod all by himself. As the fish hit, it lit that little guy’s face up big time.

Now that he had hooked his first

fish on a fly rod and grandpa had it in the net, I think I have hooked a little boy into fly fishing. Taking him fishing with me, just this last time, he thought it was neat to catch more fish then grandpa. (He still doesn’t let me live that down and he’s only 10). He is still learning new things every time he goes. He’s now learning to read a river and learn where the fish hold up and where they lie, and what area’s they feed in, and how to present that fly to them. he can't wait for another day on the river with grandpa.