Bridge Crossed

The collection of teaching lessons you must perform in the exam, afford you so little time on each. What with introductions and all the health and safety and the key points that you are told you need to be careful to include and cover. It is a challenge to go off script. Especially, if you want to use precious time to get interactions, and explore the students experience and expectations. You are after all trying to demonstrate to comparative strangers your skill base and understanding of student/instructor interactions.

What with the FFI stated requirement of audio, visual, and “kinaesthetic” learning in each lesson given to the pretend student (the examiner), mindful that they prefer to see you imaginatively use tools or props to demonstrate. Under these constraints for time, the first option is the easiest and possibly pain free method to get the result of passing the exam and being titled Pretty Polly!

I however want to be an effective teacher and demonstrate those skills, and think of how I can best get my interpretationacross and be ready to justify it. To be judged on that. My own study time, the months invested in this roll, was about learning and growing, not fudging through the path of least resistance to earning some words on a scrap of paper.

Through the exam I kept in mind, to fool myself, “these guys have never heard this before, these are beginners that you’re addressing”. To try and keep it ‘Real’ in the abnormal interactions of an examination. 

But these guys have seen and heard it all before, the script, and on many occasions. Probably, even earlier on this very day a few times. It’s not exactly that their eyes glaze over, they are far too caring for that, but you can see and feel that it’s landing flat. I immediately realised I needed to get personality in and freshen it up.

Starting the Roll cast lesson with the safety bit, I said. “I’ve never had to drive to Accident and Emergency with a fly hooked into my arse, but I’ll bet it’s a really memorable journey”. This got a smile and a chuckle and broke the ice.

By half way through the teaching section of the exam there were no questions coming back, they were taking on board what I was saying, accepting it and letting it run, (they could have course been bored rigid and dying for warmth and a brew) at some point it dawned on me and my body relaxed asI thought to myself “ Mate you’ve got this.. I’ve actually passed”.

 I just relaxed into it and enjoyed those final minutes with these few other chaps out on the field messing about casting, and the utter silliness of me pretending to be an instructor to two very good teachers and technically gifted casters. “Jeezus I’ve passed, I’ve crossed that bridge, I’m an instructor”.

Then what looked and felt like disaster struck in the ‘Analyse and Correct; demonstrated faults task’. I was presented with a fault in the roll cast that I just couldn’t get. I was walking around trying to watch it from all angles, but nothing came. The D loop didn’t look far enough back; it was level with his shoulder. The tip path seemed raked out over the anchor, so he wasn’t going to hook himself.

I tried to think of the alternative available answers given in the casting manual, there was only three of them, and that blank brain fog rolled in and I turned Zombie. The examiners swapped over and coaxed the answer out of me almost syllable by syllable. They were determined not to fail me at the final hurdle it seemed.

“D loop, cros-sing -the- anc-hor” …. Doh!  (but I had thought it looked lined up?!!)

At the end they went off for the extended chat… had I finally screwed it up with the roll cast fault? Surely not. But maybe that and one of the earlier screw ups in the casting tasks would add together as a failure. “Serves you right for getting so cocky, you twat faced pillock bugger!”

“We have another question for you?”

“Oh (shit!) what?”

“What aftershave are you wearing”

(Jeezus what’s the right way to even answer that….?)

“White by Dolce Gabbana”.

Great! You’ve passed then!”

It’s a weird thing that the pangs of grief and emptiness kick in almost immediately on the walk back off the field, back to sign off the paperwork. You would imagine enormous relief or even exultation, a celebration of the spirit. However, it was like reading the last line of a great book and the regret of coming to an end and now closing the cover.

My recent days and months had been consumed by the preparation for the moment of that first lift up. What am I going to practice for now? What will meter my life? What do I do tomorrow? What’s my challenge, now that my challenge is done?

When I was a kid at college, there was, as seen through 17-year-old eyes, a seemingly ancient bloke there, probably in his 40’s, long haired and bearded and scruffy, a bit like Paul Arden. He famously had been going there for 20 years or more and just kept taking exams, he had accumulated something like 68 O’ levels and 35 A ‘levels. Never went for degrees, just got addicted to learning and exams in the safety of those familiar corridors and canteen. I felt a bit like him. Even more learning needed on the field!!! And I realise why some guys have; FFF; CI; MCI; GAIA; AAPGAI; etc, behind their names, it must be addictive.

I don’t think the exam day was over and I had already been told by Mr Gently Benevolent that he would not be mentoring any MCIs ever again. Not sure if he meant for everyone; everyone but me; or everyone, especially me! The grumpy old bugger. How am I going to manage it without him?

Letting off steam, casting the stress out on the field with Rickard from Sweden, Christian from Denmark, Francois from France, Malik from Switzerland, Martin from Argentina, Graham from Australia and Nick Moore from the UK casting team, that’s when I really felt the imposter syndrome kick in. This was a joke, me out there casting as an equal with these guys. Hilarious! We were assured a few times that it was a particularly high standard of casting at this particular event. It was no wonder, these guys were all brilliant and seemingly gifted, I’m a duffer from a muddy little brook in the Midlands, who typically casts a 3 wt. out a few rod lengths and is more invested in habitat and making loops, than actually catching fish.

We peeled off as a group later, drawn to the nearby river, running along the edge of the casting paddock. The season had just closed for Trout, so we joked that we were trying for the red spotted Grayling. I don’t think any of us was really hell bent on catching, we just had this urge to cast properly as fishermen again. Instead of flat mown fields we had some scrub to bushwack through, with currents of running water, trees to side cast under, and drifts to pick out or mend around.

After long months of sterile practice sessions on open grass, it was time to debrief and connect with water and the spirit of fly casting again, to feel at home. It was closure.

Driving home, I got gloriously lost in the beautiful views on the country roads skirting along Hadrian’s wall and found myself on the west of the country and following the old Roman road heading for, or inexplicably drawn to, the John Norris fishing tackle shop, and they’re sale.

Looking for bargains and a present for myself as a souvenir ofthe exam I bumped into the bright mustard down puffa jacket of my examiner Paul, also plundering the bargain bins butfailing to be enticed. Great minds think alike or get lost alike.

We decided instead to head for the decent coffee at the nearest motorway services (the hotel coffee had been truly insipid and awful). So, I had a further debrief of a few hours chewing the fat with the guy that passed me, who assured me it hadn’t been a close call, and that I needed to stop putting myself down because he was starting to find it annoying.

I had just passed with Nick Moore and Rickard Gustafsson and earned the same qualification, come on, reality check here, that’s just fucking nuts!

When I finally got back into Oundle I nipped in the house and got out a Sharpy pen and headed for the field. I measured out 50’, marked the line and started perfecting the pickups and loops at 50’ before I’d even unpacked my bags from the car. Those standard basic casts for MCI exam. And no dog walkers were abused or harmed in this first practice session.

It’s going to be a bumpy ride to MCI and there will be a roller coaster journey from giant walls of doubt to deep pits of despair! But I look forward to the learning process and discovering what fly caster comes out of the other end of it, far away on some now, not so strange field, near the Scottish borders.

Just one sour note. Before I prepared to take it, I had joined the FFI and paid my subs. Then a month out I got a bill through for taking the exam, I had no idea of the cost when I had applied for it. I was thinking a few hundred quid maybe, but it ended up costing $330. Ok so the examiners time and venue need to be paid for, I could live with that. With having to stay in the hotel for a few nights and gas for the car and missed work, this was getting to be expensive for a gardener. But I accepted it, I was through and thought that was the end of it.

Then after passing I got a congratulatory email from the FFI saying they needed to upgrade my membership, print off a certificate and post it to me. Another 100 bucks. 35 for a paper certificate that will live forgotten in a drawer, and 35 bucks for postage and packing of that piece of paper.

Why? why not just email me a certificate?  Or, even better, why not tell us upfront that there will be extra costs if you pass, so you’re ready for it. Which if you do fail you can at least console yourself you’ve saved yourself an extra hit on the wallet.

“Hey Guys…. Drinks on me, I just failed, whoopee!!”

It just seems so mercenary. I don’t feel so much like a shiny new instructor, more like an old, plugged cash cow for the FFI, waiting for what other hidden cost they are going to bill me with next. As a counter point to Brian McGlashan’s wonderful inclusive and friendly band of instructors, the US FFI just feels so corporate and aloof.

Unlike the people who are hoping to be guides and make a career of this, I haven’t entered this to make some extra income, I’m not expecting to earn back my costs. I wonder what percentage who take this exam really are? 

I’m not looking for, nor would want, financial rewards from the thing I have a passion for, loops and wild places. I just want to help the people I see struggling to get better loops and more accurate presentation, for them to be more successful and develop this passion. Safe in the knowledge that it is megiving them best and not bad advice. 

It’s something I feel I was gifted by kindly others and now want to gift forward. I’ve been guided, trained and patiently advised by various wonderful people at the BFCC for peanuts. I hope I can be able to be more active and involved at the BFCC events as the older instructors are dropping out and need replacing, and the qualification I hope, helps them. 

Introducing more people to fly casting, river fishing, developing a closeness to, and an understanding of the fragile and beautiful environments that we are blessed and privileged to be guardians of, if we choose to. This is as much about helping people to make that choice and a further string in my bow of being a habitat manager.

The more successful these people become in pursuing wild fish, the more invested people become in those habitats for the wild Trout, and the more active and engaged they become in preserving those wild places for the life within the rivers; and all the other creatures and habitats linked to them.

I will never stop blowing the trumpet of how much we fly fishermen can and do contribute to safeguarding the environment and from our unique perspective, flagging up the concerns. We are closely witnessing a criminal demise at present, our natural resources being sacrificed for profit, votes, and shareholder dividends. We need more voices, we need more recruitment, becoming CI was a string in that bow!

There was an old saying about teaching a man to fish in simpler times: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime".

I say, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach many men to fish, open their eyes, and these dying waters may just survive for their children. "

Still despite that aspect of the US FFI administration, the journey was worth it, and the exam was, despite some of what I have written, really good fun and a brilliant experience and a way to meet some remarkable people. I recommend it to anyone.

That’s it, normal service resumed next week. James and Tracy will be dragged out stretching and yawning from an early hibernation to start preparing for Bone fishing trips and warmth they will be back on Wednesday duties telling all.

Can I be the first to wish you all a happy solstice.

I’m going to spend my spare hours now reading up MCI papers and wondering what those corporate profiteers are going to charge me for the privilege, while other corporate profiteers continue to despoil our waterways. There is a common enemy it seems.

PS Our local club The Willowbrook fly fishers AGM just passed. They proposed that due to my investments of time and materials and tools etc in the club and habitat, and lately the casting club to help members. That they would like to pay for my next exam.

I withdrew my head, tortoise style, deep inside my jumper and cringed, before sticking my head out answering. “. the stress is bad enough guys, building up to one of these exams, without having it hanging over me that if I fail, I’ve also just let the club down and wasted members money. Thanks, but…No freek’in way!”

Chris Avery