A Fly Fishing Workshop

It would have been in March that Brent Cummings, with the Walla Walla Public School District contacted Diane about conducting a Fly Fishing Workshop in June. Diane had plans to be out-of-town during that time, and pointed Brent to make contact with the WALLA² FLY FISHERS to try to setup such a workshop.

Via email, Brent made contact and Secretary Dale began to put the workshop in motion from our end.

This workshop was a segment of a 4-day multi-faceted conference -DO Conference- being held on the campus of Whitman College in Walla Walla for educators and their classroom helpers coming from across the state of Washington.

For this Fly Fishing Workshop segment Dale recruited the help of fellow club members Herb, Heidi, Judy, and Tom to assist in the tying of flies and demonstrate and assist in fly rod casting. Our segment was a 4-hour hands-on demonstration and discussion into the art and science of fly fishing.

Prior to the workshop Dale developed a multi-page handout for everyone to have in hand for the workshop, and to take home with many Internet reference points, to aid in their further education of fly fishing.

In introducing the art and science of fly fishing Dale pointed out several reference guides that the participants would find useful for their at home references to aid in fly fishing our Pacific Northwest.

Our classroom instruction was fly tying demonstrated by Dale with the assistance of our other club members aiding the class participates. The class handout listed with recipes 5 flies to tye as time allowed. As in many cases with novice tyers, in the two and a half hours we had allotted for fly tying, we slowly went step-by-step to tye a Bead Head Wooly Bugger, and then after a break tied the same fly as fast as we could. 

The second Wooly Bugger tied only took most participates 15-20 minutes to tye.

After a refreshment break, everyone came back to class and we discussed fly rod casting. Heidi had a demo rod that demonstrated very well (indoors) the mechanics of rod and line control. 

Dale brought an assortment of rods to demonstrate the difference in rod sizes and materials used to manufacture rods. Matching rods, reels, and fly lines were discussed.

Thereafter the class moved to college outdoor commons for fly rod casting instructions and practice. At this time our club's VP Tom returned and helped with this portion of our program.

Click on this link for a PDF copy of our Workshop Handout
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u9YdjqZisVlfruWFS-7TnHdBOfUF9wsb/view?usp=sharing

As the workshop ended, there was a standardized questionnaire circulated on benefits and lessons learned from our fly fishing segment of this Workshop Conference. We are happy to report that many of the participants said they were very happy with the results of this time well spent.

Respectfully submitted,

Dale McKain
Club Secretary

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