Fun at the Kids Fishing Rodeo yesterday...
Our T.U. chapter was one of the participants at a Kids fishing rodeo yesterday, which was was a lot of fun and we got a hoot a time or two out of a couple of our visitors. Our TU Chapter usually has a fly tying demonstration and one member, also with Save Our Streams, seines the local water ,collects all the "bugs" in two styrofoam containers and lets the kids see them and explains all about each "captive." We also have ten rods equipped with "yarn" flies and let one and all try their hand at casting at two sizes of hula hoops.
Was sitting in the fly tying shelter tent and my buddy Bob was tying when a family came up to see what it was all about and Bob is excellent with kids. He has them choose the materials, all the colors and maybe even the kind of flies they'd like and even names them for the kids. The youngest of this threesome of kids announces his name is Austin and he's in kindergarden. He promptly asks Bob if he knows what 100 and 100 is and then tells him it's 200. He then goes on to ask and answer what's 200 and 200 and goes up to what's 1,600 and 1,600 - it's 3,200 in case you didn't know! Then he asks what's 2,000 and 1,280 and tells Bob the answer. We're all pretty much chuckling by now and I whisper and ask his dad if he's not really a 27 year old midget! Think he'll be the next Einstein as, when asked, he said his favorite subject in school was math - what a surprise that was.
Also had a really serious eleven year old that said he'd tied flies before. When Bob asked what kind he promptly said a Clouser minnow and Woolly Bugger. He and Bob conversed a long time while Bob showed him several tying tips. Gave his dad our website info and when he asked if they're were any tying clubs or places Bob invited his dad to bring him to the next one we had at one our members house. We had two fly rods and reels and two small tying kits in wooden boxes for door prizes but decided that we'd give one to this young man. Lotta potential there.
I asked Bob when and how he got started fly fishing. Bob said his dad was a fly fisherman and he wanted to do it to so his dad gave him a small tying kit when he was eleven along with a glass Mason jar and told him when he filled it with flies he'd take him trout fishing. Said it took him about three to four months to finally fill it and then his dad took him fly fishing and he was "hooked" for life.
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