I found Neil's article was a breath of fresh air. I to teach fly casting along with fly fishing, and fly tying. I had the experience of being a good caster and poor fly angler.

Back when I was introduced to the sport in 1970, I was taught much about casting and very little about actually fly fishing. As a consequence I became a good caster but became increasingly frustrated with my low catch ratio. After a while I gave up fly fishing and went back to pulling plugs. Then in 1986 while fishing a Cariboo Lake I witnessed rainbows feeding on scuds in the shallows. This led me to question why my fly fishing mentors had not told me about the proper use of flies. This got me reading books on the subject. The more I studied the better my catch ratio became.

The self taught road was a long one, but I learned and got into instructing and writing on the subject in the mid 90s. Now I teach my students that fly casting while being a very effective way to present a fly, it is not fly fishing.

I also agree with you Silver Creek. There is far too much emphisis put on distance, when learning to cast effectively with both hands would serve an angler much better. When I teach intermediate fly casting; I get my students to work on casting while sitting on a bucket, on one knee, and sitting flat on the ground, with both right and left hands.