My wife, Lori, and I have scheduled our spring fly fishing class at Arkansas State University Mountain Home beginning on March 19, 2015. The class will be held from 6:00 PM until 8:00 PM every Thursday night for four weeks (3/19/2015, 3/26/2015, 4/2/2015 and 4/9/2015). This class is designed for complete novices that have never held a fly rod, in their hands. However we think that self taught anglers, who have never taken any formal instruction, will benefit from attending this class. Lori has been a fly fishing guide for over a dozen years and I have been guiding for over twenty years. In that time, we have learned a thing or two about fly fishing. We both consider ourselves to be teaching guides and enjoy working with new fly fishers.
Since the beginning of our teaching this class five years ago (we taught classes for several other institutions before that), Lori has led the casting instruction. She is very committed to teaching casting and truly enjoys it. Over the years, her casting skills have surpassed mine. She works hard to be a better caster. We turned our side yard into a casting lawn to have a place to practice and teach. When we met, she was employed as a corporate trainer and she has used this background to be a great casting instructor. I assist her in teaching the class and I use my two decades of casting instruction to your benefit. We devote half of the class time to casting instruction. When you take our class, you will learn to cast a fly rod. You can use your rod and reel or use one of ours.
I lead on the classroom instruction. This is where I utilize my many years of fly fishing and guiding to teach what is important for you, to know when you are on stream. The emphasis is to keep everything simple. I don’t want to tell you everything that I know. I want to carefully teach you what you need to know.
I begin with telling you about the equipment that is available and what you will need. I also discuss what you don’t need. This is where you learn what you need to buy and how much to spend. I suggest that you wait until you attend this class, before you buy anything. We also spend plenty of time discussing water safety. You learn how to predict safe wading conditions and how to wade safely.
The next class is devoted to learning to tie knots. This is one of the most important things we cover. If you can’t tie on your own fly you are not independent. We make sure that every student learns two basic knots and how to avoid using any other knots. At the next class, we take these basic knots and apply them to learning to rig and fish, with four fundamental techniques.
Our last class is committed to learning about flies. You will learn what flies are needed and which ones you should have to fish around here or anywhere else. We also spend quite a bit of time learning to read water to determine, where the fish are. Lori assists me in all of this.
If this sounds like something that you would be interested in, please contact Sarah Sikes at Arkansas State University Mountain Home (870) 508-6105 to register. I hope to see you there.
John Berry is a fly fishing guide in Cotter, Arkansas and has fished our local streams for over thirty years.
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