I'll contribute to this... It's always fun to listen and tell stories... Real or not..

I got a friend of mine interested in fly fishing last year when we took the long trip to Nashville to the Bass Pro there. He bought some odd-ball travel fly rod complete with cheap reel and cheap line and a very unattractive tube sock to store it in. Earlier this year I was showing him how to cast. Not that I can do any better mind you.

Well, I told him it was a matter of timing, so I explained it the way I see it. Take the slack out, back cast, wait for it to load and forward cast. He heard me, and he cast it like he was casting a hunk of liver to a catfish. I kept trying to explain it and he kept casting like it was a spin reel. I took a wild guess and tried casting his rod thinking that maybe it wasn't cooperating. The rod did fine. I showed him time and again, and he hardly learned a thing.

So I caught a little bluegill (about 3 inches) and he caught one slightly longer, though I'm not sure how. I also caught a bunch of tree fish and stump fish thinking that if he saw how far I could cast that he would try harder. So after we were done, I thought that I would show him the flexibility of my rod thinking that if he understood how flexible it was he would understand casting a little better. So I took my little St. Croix, grabbed the handle and the tip and touched them together. This was followed by a loud "snap" which was followed by my colorful language for situations like that.

Needless to say, I was a little confused by the day. He couldn't hardly cast 10 feet and had much better luck than I did the entire time....