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New Beginners Fly Tying Course


Junior

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Dennis mentioned recently that he was working on a new fly tying course for beginners. He and I will have to compare notes, because I've also been developing one, as well as one for intermediate tyers. When we did the beginners course this spring I felt it could use a little more structure and some re-working of the content.

 

I would welcome comments and suggestions from all the members, particularly those who've volunteered for the beginners course in the past.

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Ken and Junior

The information I provided was never intended to be a comprenhensive beginner course. It was intended as source material to support our annual public beginner tyng seminars. The patterns listed were simply a compilaton of those used over the years in those seminars. The rest of the material is just a compilation of equipment and materials a basic fly tying kit could contain. There's no discussion of technique or progression in developing skills. That was left to the course instructor to work out to suit the audience of the day and the instructor"s preference in how to present the course.

In my opinion, a well structured beginner course can't be collapsed into one day. All you can do in one day is provide an introduction to basic equipment, materials and skill. If, at the end of the the day, the begininer knows what a vice, pliers, bobbin, scissors and whip finisher are and can use them to tie a couple of simple patterns, then that's about all you can expect.

A proper course should take several days, spread over several weeks and shouid deal with all the stuff introduced in the seminars in much more detail, along with patterns to reinforce the information given. My Kiwi friends do just that. I might be able to get some info from them if you want.

Edited by dave robinson
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I wrote out my old course that I taught for several years and both Dennis and Kristi have a copy (to edit). If we are not able to meet then possibly Kristi and Dennis could speak of this material. Seeing that I only am able to attend rare meetings on Wednesdays due to being at work in Calgary. I am unable to meet that night. A friday- monday usually will work better for me. As for breaking down the course that I wrote, that can be condensed to a 6 hour day with Basic tool knowledge, starting and finishing a fly, and tying four basic flies. These are a basic wet, streamer, nymph and a dry. After that with club night to get these beginner to come to meetings. We can do a night of winged wets, a night of Steamer wings, a night of Fullback and halfback nymphs styles…etc..

 

Although the course was originally laid out to be taught over a 6 week period at one 2.5 hour night per week. It certainly can be easily altered, condensed to suit and still be able to follow the format towards its original intention of being a full Basic Program.

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That sounds really great, Gary. It's easy to see how a program like that would do a better job of recruiting members.

 

No overlap at all, really. I needed a program for myself, that was really flexible. I was trying to squeeze a little more into a one day course, by sticking to the format we use at the kids tyes at the shows. I've been asked before to teach someone to tye flies. I usually get an hour, maybe a few, so I use this holistic approach.

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bare with me my head is hurting so I should maybe not say anything here but I'm going too. I think we are on the right track here. The idea was for Gary to out line a continuing program much like Bill Lee had done. This is being done to keep a beginner interest after we have done our Beginner seminar in Apr. We can also use it at the start of our Sept meetings and should be done by the time Apr rolls around to restart. Ricks idea was and sounds great to revamp the Beginner seminar which also is great as we need to on a periodic bases update and revamp our programs. Dave is correct with what he said that we can not squeeze a beginners course into a one day seminar. It is going to be great to have a manual so we can have an on going beginners program after the seminar. I say KOODOO's to both Gary & Rick for the hard work both have put into these programs and ideas.

 

 

Tight lines Always

Dennis S :fishing::fish_jump:

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  • 3 weeks later...

If there are drafts of these materials being prepared, we could have them circulated and we can edit them into something that we can print and offer to the participants in the tying courses.

As for discussing things when we cannot meet, we could try to set up conferencing over skype (or similar).

The other day, I demonstrated the nymph that Mike tied at the club meeting to my Dad who is now overseas, nine time zones away. It was fun and we were both comfortably at home.

A separate webcam is necessary to get a good angle on the fly tying and close-ups, other than that, all of us already have the gear and the internet access.

If we had WIFi at the meetings, we could also bring in distant guests. That should be fun.

Florin

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