Paul Arden | Monday, 27 August 2018
Just running off the back of a Sexyloops casting weekend - thanks to everyone who came! Piffen Daniel and I have just arrived at Grafham - hence the late FP. Eighteen years ago around yr2000 I went diving in Thailand and took both Open Water and Advanced PADI diving certificates. At the time I thought that this would be a great model for flycasting instruction for fishermen. Something that you may have realised about Sexyloops is that nothing happens fast. However it does happen eventually!!
It’s taken a long bloody time but I finally have a entry level test for this casting challenge. The purpose of this challenge is several fold:
Firstly the overriding purpose is that it gives a goal for casting students to work towards. It should be a “challenge” but not, at first, an insurmountable one. I have three levels in mind, the Essential Level, Advanced Level and Elite Level. Believe me, Elite will be a serious challenge. However even the Essential Level will most certainly improve one’s fishing game and includes casts that are not tested anywhere - but are essential fishing ones!
The second purpose is that it should give a syllabus to instructors. Ie a student comes for a lesson, what do you teach? Well you can teach many things but here you have a core syllabus with a recognised exam at the end.
Finally, it should give a clear route for students wanting to challenge themselves without having to become teachers - which is the only current option apart from full blown competition.
So what we have is ten tasks. Every task is clearly measurable - ie the fly must hit the target. The caster has three attempts to hit the target. If the caster fails to hit any task in first three attempts then this is a fail. Sounds hard but the targets are not tea cups and have been carefully tried and tested on anglers...
More on this next week. I have some more work to do on the Challenge. If you are interested in seeing the current “prototype” test then drop me a line. I expect to launch the Essential Level - finally - next Monday. Any feedback between now and then would be most appreciated.
Have a great day - I’m off fishing now :)
Cheers,
Paul
ps today’s POD is a photo of Mark Surtees with a hanky on his head.