Need Help

[TWEEK]

Hey,

i'm currently taking a speech class in college. I have the opertunity to give an informative speech on fly fishing. My class is very limited to knowledge. Im looking for some main points that will be very basic but not boring to give a speech about. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Keep your eye on the fly,

brent

 

[Heritage-Angler]

TWEEK - Are props allowed? I did something a little similar many years ago and used a few props to enhance the presentation. I took a piece of straight plastic tubing about 3' long, cut a 1' piece of broom stick, drilled a hole in the end of the broomstick "handle" and epoxied the tubing in. I attaced a 6' piece of a craft store feather boa to the tip of the tubing.. It made for a great visual demo on the difference of casting with a fly rod, as opposed to a spinning rod. I also had examples of real equipment and LARGE poster size drawings of fly types and the naturals they represent, as well as targeted fish species. I covered basic equipment and basic strategies of fishing dries, wets, nymphs, and streamers. My presentation concluded with a bit of info on conservation. My intended goal was to attract people to the sport, rather than a class presentation, but if you keep things interesting enough you may accomplish both goals. Good Luck!.......Ed

 

[Padraic]

What is the scope of the talk? How long do you have?

If you have only 5 to 7 minutes, I would limit yourself to something like casting. That is to say, a very limited part of fly fishing, rather than an overview of the whole of fly fishing.

 

[TWEEK]

You have it right on the money, i only have 5-7 min, thanks for all the info keep it coming!!!

 

[Padraic]

Then I would stick to fly casting and explaining how it is different than spinning.

A neat little device that may help illustrate fly casting is the Fly-O
http://www.royalwulff.com/educational.html
The heavy line should make it easy for everyone to see the loops.

 

[Chaz]

You know when I went to college we didn't have the internet to help us with our class work, we didn't use calculators for math, and we didn't get help from the general public. I had a speech class and I had to do all the speeches in front of everyone, didn't have the advantage of practicing with video, or recorders, and I had to write them myself and make sure they fit the time frame. Do a little work.

 

[tomgamber]

And you kept all your food in an ice box and you only fish with bamboo and silk line...and never use synthetic tying materials and you ride your horse to the stream to fish. Give the kid a break Chaz, he's using the tools that are available to him. I envy my kids ability to use the computer on his assignments for school but I don't think he should not use them when the rest of the students do. You have to keep the playing field level. I do give him the "we used to have to walk uphill, both ways, in six feet of snow" story occasionally, though.

 

[TWEEK]

For real, im just trying to get a little help, i understand that times where rough back in the day, but i guarentee you would have used the internet and fellow fly fishing friends as references. im not asking you guys to do all the work for me im just trying to brain storm and get a few ideas....sometimes you just need another persons idea to get your own rolling and get yourself thinking. Anyways enough with that i appreciate all the help you guys gave me i decided to be very basic on the following main points the different species of trout (rainbow, brown and brook) i know there are more but im limited on time and these are the most basic found in pa, the gear needed to begin fly fishing and three main type of flys the dry fly, nymph and streamer....again i know there is the wet fly and so forth but im limited on time and want to keep things basic....ive already had a few people ask if i could teach them the ropes of fly fishing so i hope this will get a few more interested in the hobby. thanks again and have a good one.

 

[TimMurphy]

Dear TWEEK,

Don't mind Chaz, he's just having a hard time accepting the fact that some brook trout died this weekend.

Regards,
Tim Murphy

 

[Fishidiot]

TWEEK,
With the limited amount of time you've got I'd agree with Pad that you should focus on what distinguishes fly fishing - that primarily being the notion of casting the line rather than the weight of the lure/bait. A few references to the history of FF here in PA might be interesting, esp if your school is nearby (Fox, Marinaro, Flick et al or Letort, Fisherman's Paradise etc). Maybe a brief explanation of dry flies vs wet flies, streamers etc. You can always bring a few flies in to class as props or if you're decent at drawing simply draw 'em on the white board. Good luck with your speech.

 

[Padraic]

Fishidiot wrote:
You can always bring a few flies in to class as props or if you're decent at drawing simply draw 'em on the white board. Good luck with your speech.

Brings up a good point... what sort of AV equipment do you have available? It might be easier to explain casting by filming yourself casting, then reviewing the film with the class. You could pause it, rewind, replay etc.

PS: I don't see anything inappropriate in brainstorming with others. As I recall, we did a good deal of that in my college days.

 

[Chaz]

When it comes to catching trout on flies, it is size and color that matter most. If you don't have the correct size and color of the flies that are present you will have a hard time catching anything, unless you are fishing with searching patterns on a small mountain stream. On these types of streams it doesn't usually matter what you use except that if you don't start catching trout immediately they aren't hungry for what you have presented, or they been fished over. Trout spook easily and they will be spooked for up to a day after someone has fished over them.
Stocked trout act very differently, they are accustomed to seeing people in near proximity so they aren't as easily spooked, but they don't always recognize a real meal either so they can be difficult to catch at times. Once acclimated to a streams food supply they usually are very easy to catch.