Fly CASTING LESSONS by wgsten
With the wild Brown Trout fishing season now closed for 2011 I was toying with the idea of taking some fly casting lessons. I have been fly fishing for nearly forty years now and I never had a casting lesson. I mentioned to some fel- low anglers about taking some casting lessons and I got some varied responses. “What are you taking lessons for?”, “have you lost your mind?”, “look at all the fish you catch you don’t need lessons!”, “you could teach fly casting”. A few however were in agreement saying they thought it was a good idea. Most of those that were in agreement admitted that they also had taken some lessons at some stage or other. I finally made up my mind and set about booking a few lessons. I and two other anglers booked a weekend in the west of Ireland with Declan Hughes. I had seen Declan casting on many oc- casions and only I recently found out that he is a fully qualified game angling instructor (APGAI approved).
rain gear and got the fishing rods ready for some casting. We started the morning with sin- gle handed rods.
River Moy, east Mayo
As we all have experience in casting, the les- sons were aimed towards improving whatever aspect of casting each of us felt weak at. The area I wanted to improve in was my distance casting. Most of the fishing that I do during the open season hardly ever call for any distance casting. With the season now closed I am now fishing for Rainbow trout on private fisheries which are open throughout the year. Over the years I have caught many Rainbow trout at close distances but there are times when that extra distance can give you some advantage, like when lure stripping is the order of the day. The style of casting I wanted to achieve was to gain as much distance I could but without the need for too much false casting.
Lough Conn, Co. Mayo
I headed over to Foxford on a Friday evening after work, and I arrived at the pre booked B&B shortly after ten pm. After dropping off the bags at the B&B I headed down to the town for a few beers and some craic. The next morning after breakfast I met up with Declan at the local GAA pitch. It was bad morning weather wise with persistent heavy rain and a strong wind. This was not going to deter us so we put on the
Lough Cullin, Co. Mayo I Shoot and Fish E-Zine December 2011 34
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