I really enjoyed the article. It got me to thinking about the whole picture of fly fishing/casting. When I gave up the tournament bass fishing thing, after 30 years, I picked up a fly rod and went to the river where I found my love for fishing again. I have always fished for as long as I can remember and I really enjoy getting away from the "world" and just fish. Tournament fishing took the "joy" and "fun" out of my fishing and the crowded lakes took my desire to fish away. It seemed like all I ever did was "hunt" for bass and see what pattern they were on so that I could do well in the next tournament. When I sold my bass boat my wife told me that I would go crazy if I did not do some sort of fishing and a friend of mine told me to go buy a fly rod and go to the river. I bought a Wal-Mart special and a handful of flies and went to the river. Never casted a fly rod in my life and was not the least bit worried about that. I just wanted to go fishing and enjoy the day. After getting away from everyone, so I would not be the entertainment for everyone who knew what they were doing, I started playing with the fly rod to see what it wanted me to do so that I could get the store bought flies where I wanted them. I started off with a grasshopper fly and by the end of the day, I had caught my limit and was a happy fisherman. From that day to now, I never give casting a second thought ( and my casting shows it!). I just fish and I can get the flies to go where I want them and can mend line as needed and seem to do everything well enough to catch fish and that is my main goal. Now I tie my own flies, teach the basic techniques of fly tying in classes and have met some great fly fishermen/ladies while fishing and tying. Fly fishing is a wonderful and relaxing sport and I love it. I just noticed that I am rambling and that was not my intentions and I apologize.

My main thought after reading this article is that maybe we need to take new comers to this sport fishing first and casting second. Once they see the importance of better casting, it will give them the desire to learn better casting. I have met and talked to so many people who said they have thought about taking up fly fishing, but, did not think they could get the "hang" of the casting. So many people feel you do a lot of casting with fly fishing and this is caused by all the videos they watch and see a lot of "rod waving" while fishing. No one explains to them why that particular video shows a lot of false casting because the person is dry fly fishing and is removing the water from the fly so it will float better. Once I explain that, it seems to make better sense to them. I honestly feel that we need to take the new person to a pond somewhere and just turn them lose. Let them figure out what they need to do with the rod to get the fly where they want it. Let them come to you and ask how you are able to put the fly where you want it easier than they can which results in more fish caught. When they have the desire to learn better casting to improve their "catching", they will be better students and learn faster because they want to get back to fishing with a fly rod.

Sorry for the long post....