Why did I do it, part 3

Where was I?, oh, yeah.

 The test is done as if you were giving the examiner a lesson, although you still know he’s the boss you have to treat him like a student. If you perform the task and he is happy with your explanation you move on to the next one, easy!, except every now and then they will delve a little deeper just to make sure you do know what you’re talking about.

 The one thing I had to work hard at was the explanations for each cast. They have to be clear and concise without straying off into unintelligible, pseudo technical, gobbledygook. You are trying to teach someone who may never have picked up a rod before so explanations should be fairly simple. I wrote an explanation for each cast and then refined it, several times, until I was happy with it. It was my bedtime reading for weeks.

 The two best tools for an instructor are Bill Gammels Five Essentials and Bruce Richards Six Step method for rectifying casting faults. If you fully understand the Five Essentials you are well on your way to understanding how flycasting works and Bruce’s method is pretty straightforward.

 One thing you have to do is join the FFF. They send you some usefull material plus I also ordered Mel Kreiger’s Flycasting Faults and Fix’s and it was the best thing I ever did, it’s a fantastic DVD and helped me a lot. Sad to say Mel died earlier this year and I will never get the chance to see him casting in the flesh.

 Originally I was going to go to the States to take my test but for one reason or another that fell through and I wasn’t sure when or where I would do it. Then out of the blue CCI testing was arranged in Dunkeld where there was going to be a gathering of Sexyloopers. This was only a few weeks away and panic set in. Was I ready or not?, it’s no good people saying you will walk it, they may have confidence, I didn’t. I arranged for a practice test with a friend, that went OK, then I had another practice test with an FFF Master who then informed me I had to do an explanation for every bloody cast right from cast one. If I was jittery before I was cacking it now. There were some awkward questions to answer, I could demonstrate them but I was not sure I could explain them easily. Well, it turns out you can if you stick to the Five Essentials, most of it is in there somewhere.

 One more episode should do it, next weekend perhaps or maybe tomorrow if the snow falling outside my window doesn’t ease off soon.