Cast - Stroke - Unload - Haul - Shoot

CURRENT LOCATION: Rock Creek RV Resort, Naples, FL, USA

We signed up for a 1/2 days instruction with Captain Ken Chambers who runs a fly fishing and light tackle instructional guiding service out of Naples. Our trip was into the 10,000 Islands, just off Calusa Island. We have both wanted to learn this skill for sometime now and it’s not something that is easy to do on your own, either by reading a book or watching a video. 

... explaining the details.

Ken was a good teacher and we both absorbed enough information in 3 hours to enable us to continue developing by ourselves. We also got good tips on what equipment to supply ourselves with as beginners ... use a 6 weight rod for streams in Ontario, a 4 piece rod is best for backcountry travel and convenience, put money into the rod not the reel, 6 to 10 flies to start, a $100 rod is almost as good as a $900 rod.

Ken helps Helen with the false casting cadence, the stops and the correct arc.

Foreward cast, unload the rod and shoot. 

We didn't catch any fish, but then again we didn't expect to. We spent a few hours on the water with a really good instructor and we both learned a lot. Next step ... practise with our own equipment, fish some, practise catch & release and maybe even start 'Tying Our Own Flies".

Canoes are wonderful platforms for fly fishing, so we are looking forward to applying some of our newly aquired skills on our next wilderness canoe trip in Yukon or NWT for grayling, rainbow trout or arctic char. 

In the meantime, our kayaks will work well for this fishing style, in Florida. The waters are often shallow here and there is certainly no shortage of fish ... snook, mullet, snapper, tarpon, grouper, bonefish.

Some HISTORY

From Wikipedia: Many credit the first recorded use of an artificial fly to the Roman Claudius Aelianus near the end of the 2nd century. He described the practice of Macedonian anglers on the Astraeus River:

...they have planned a snare for the fish, and get the better of them by their fisherman's craft. . . . They fasten red wool. . . round a hook, and fit on to the wool two feathers which grow under a cock's wattles, and which in color are like wax. Their rod is six feet long, and their line is the same length. Then they throw their snare, and the fish, attracted and maddened by the color, comes straight at it, thinking from the pretty sight to gain a dainty mouthful; when, however, it opens its jaws, it is caught by the hook, and enjoys a bitter repast, a captive.

In his book Fishing from the Earliest Times, however, William Radcliff (1921) gave the credit to Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis), born some two hundred years before Aelianus, who wrote:

...Who has not seen the scarus rise, decoyed and killed by fraudful flies...

Crusty ...