Archive for the ‘Youth’ Category

I received a very nice email and photograph from Trevor Northan, Business Development Manager of Total Sea Fishing Magazine.  Trevor writes,

“I just came across your article (ed. Snowbee Classic Junior Fly Rod) purely by accident, and I gave the same Snowbee rod to my Granddaughter who started fly fishing at 7 years of age. Having been a keen fly angler myself for many years I was amazed at how quickly Poppy took to the sport, and not only managed some effective short range casts, but landed 3 fine rainbows on her first outing. I have attached a picture for your perusal.

As you say this rod is light and very easily put to great use by a young beginner to the sport, and casts beautifully. Like you I agree that it is best suited to a 6wt line. Whenever a product is aimed at the “ child market “ there is always a huge shortfall in it’s usefulness: not so with this gem of a rod. To an adult, as you say, you are restricted by its’ length: but a child is not. This is the finest rod that you could ever give a young fly fisher and 100% fit for the purpose!”

The image Trevor sent:

Trevor’s granddaughter Poppy caught the fish in the photo with the Snowbee Junior fly rod at Heathcote Lakes near Warwickshire, UK.  Warwickshire is located in the West Midlands region of England.  Trevor writes that the area has some hard fighting fish that take savagely and provide good sport.

I’m looking forward to posting some photos of my son David with some fish caught on his Snowbee Junior rod – crossing fingers he’ll be into some later this spring.

Thanks for the note and photo, Trevor! And congratulations, Poppy! I hope you continue to enjoy fly fishing with that rod your grandfather gave you.

That’s the “wee man,” smiling his little heart out after tying up our Copper Oval Tinsel Chironomid pattern.  This time, David did just about everything on his own.  He was pretty proud of himself as well he should be.  We went over our materials list first and  he recalled just about everything we needed.  He set up his vice on his own.  He put the bead on the hook on his own, and then tightened the hook into the vice.  He then started the thread around the shank of the hook.

He tied in the oval tinsel and wound it up to the bead where he had a little problem securing it, but he fixed that up. Then, he tied in his three peacock herl and secured them. The only thing I did was finish it for him with a few half hitches.  I didn’t hold anything for him and didn’t have to tell him what to do or how to do it. He’s getting to be an old pro at this!  Well.. we still need to do a wee bit of work on a few things:

It will still catch fish, but we need to work on getting some things tightened up a bit with David getting used to using a bit more tension.  But this fly is not far off what I tied, all by myself, the very first time, and I was an adult – not a 7 year old kid.

He enjoyed using his new bobbin – a smaller 3″ size that I picked up the other day – a Dr. Slick with ceramic insert. He seemed more comfortable holding and manipulating the smaller size bobbin in his wee hands than the larger one that came in his fly tying kit.

I think I’ll have him tie up a bunch more of these – it will be a good exercise for him to practice his tension while he wraps tinsel around the hook. When he gets it just about right, which I expect he will soon, we’ll move on to tying up some streamers. Then we’ll move back to the woolly bugger and see how well he does completely on his own with that. Of course, David has a say in all of this too – what he wants to tie will be pretty important!

Related:

Chironomid Patterns

Our First Fly Tying Video

I had another enjoyable evening with my seven year old son! He’s the best! Well, all of my sons are the best although I don’t get to see the older three as often as I’d like. But I’m told that one of the older ones will be making the trek from Ottawa to Orangeville to spend some time with me over the Christmas Holiday, and I’m looking forward to that. Perhaps we’ll get Colin started in some fly tying too.

This evening, David (the wee one – but he’s getting big and soon won’t like being called “wee”) watched the Toronto Maple Leafs beat (finally) the Boston Bruins. But during the second intermission, we decided to skip the Hot Stove Lounge and tie up some flies. David has been itching to tie up a chironomid ever since he learned more about them.  He’s caught lots of rainbow trout with this particular chironomid pattern, but he hadn’t tied one yet. It’s an easy tie for a wee fellow and he really didn’t even need any help from me – he just watched what I did.

One of the challenges I face with trying to teach David how to tie flies is that he is left-handed, whereas I am right handed. So everything is backwards to me, and I get mixed up on giving him instruction. But we muddle our way through it and usually after some giggles with some hand movements that seem to defy what is possible, we get our flies tied. But I’m learning to try to be more cognizant of that difference and David is getting better at figuring out what he should be doing with each hand when both are necessary.

Ok.. onto another piece of very important news for Canadian custom fishing rod builders. After a very long time, RodMaker Magazine is now available to Canadian Subscribers! I’ve entered an agreement with a partner in regard to a new business venture, and part of that will be making available RodMaker Magazine. If you’re a Canadian custom rod builder, you might want to take advantage of the introductory special offer that is now being offered with a subscription to RodMaker Magazine in Canada.