Professional casting lessons - Are they really worth it?

If you’d asked me that a few days ago I would have said give it a go, after all, it can’t hurt (apart from the wallet); can it?

However, I had my first professional lesson on Monday with Darren Lewis, an AAPGAI instructor based in Hampshire.

To say the conditions were atrocious is an understatement. Meon Springs had reached the dizzying heights of about 2 degrees with a wind-chill taking it nearer minus 4.

After 25 years of muddling through with my casting I was feeling a little exposed on many fronts.

To be honest, I felt more like I was about to be judged on my bedroom prowess after 25 years of marriage …….. by a complete stranger!

After 5 minutes with Darren, I realised I had nothing to worry about (except hypothermia).

He put me at ease straight away and in a relaxed and friendly fashion managed to undo 25 years of bad habits formed by poor style born out of ignorance, making do, advice from “qualified” amateurs and those who knew no better.

The end result - I can now do a perfect roll cast and, are you ready for this, an overhead cast.

If that does not sound impressive to some of you, well think again.

That overhead cast is now reaching an extra 5 yards beyond my old double-haul.

Darren is not an instructor in my books, he’s a living legend!

I urge you all, if you have never had a coaching session before, do it now. It’s not too late; after all, it only took an hour or so to undo 25 years of my mischief.

But a word of warning. Try and choose an instructor based on personal recommendation from somebody you trust. Like all things in life, the good, the bad and the ugly are out there to either help you, scare you or just rip you off.

Gav

P.S. – I’m sure nobody would mind if I give the Jedi Knight a bit more of a plug - http://www.tightloops.co.uk or you can find him on the forum – username Darren Lewis - that's where I discovered him.

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Knowledge is knowing tomatoes are fruits ........
Intelligence is not putting them in a fruit-salad!

Great post -- I'm hoping to go for my FFF certification course this spring in Arkansas -- and I'm planning on spending time with some instructors before hand so I can fine tune my casting for the course -- I've had the same type of experience you described -- definitely worth taking -- some even use a Casting Analyzer computerized system (great for all those techies but very interesting to see casting dynamics too)

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"Fly fishing is solitary, contemplative, misanthropic, scientific in some hands, poetic in others, and laced with aesthetic considerations. It's not even clear if catching fish is actually the point." -John Gierach

http://tippetsandleaders.wordpress.com/

Buy Mel Kriegers dvd's and his book, you will learn a tremendous amount that will help with the FFF exam, best of luck.

This is a great post, i wish i had access to a qualified instructor over 30 years ago but there were none available in my part of the world and i too had to go to a qualified instructor to correct all the faults i had before i took my exam, and there were lots of faults!

Cheers

Richard

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Richard Jackson
Fly fishing instruction and guiding in the heart of Devon
www.devonflyfisher.com

A good instructor is simply the best investment you can make ,and regular refreshers ,I hav e never regretted lessons from Falkus , John Buckland,and of course every ones bete noir Berlin !
Had some others but those three sort of are there in the memory to sort things when its going wrong !

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Andy Wren
Winter grayling taking a year off !
Claret not just a great dubbing colour!

I dont think casting lessons are worth the expense, £45 PH from Sportfish, if all you do is river fishing. You dont need to cast any great distances, quite the opposite on some stretches of river to avoid bushes and trees and if you wear waders, all you have to do is find your range and there you have it, job done.

Its quite good to read a post like this and i agree it is those who are recommended that prove their worth as they are the ones who work hard at it.Each Instructor should be judged individually and not by the badge they wear as there are Instructors and "Instructors".
Jeltz I agree in part to what you say,but,Instructors are not there to teach how to cast huge distances, as your post said rivers are different,but the impression some seem to get is that all they teach you is how to cast miles which is wrong,there is alot more to it than that.
As for the river side,agreed you dont need to cast far on some rivers due to width,but using slack line casts,curve casts and underhand casts to get to those fish who have set up house in awkward ,hard to get at spots and survived for a long time as you cant cast to them,maybe given some more options of casts you may just cast to a lifetimes best fish,if you can learn this on your own ,fine,if not would that instructor not give you more knowledge of casting skills and casts and more challenge of casting to those places you would not otherwise fish due to obstacles of low overhanging branches,where aged old wise fish lie feeling nice and safe for the next meal to drop in.Just a thought.

Mike
good luck with your FFF exam,you will enjoy doing it im sure.The only advice I will give you for this is Practice ,Practice practice.Get some hoops for the accuracy skills and then practice till it becomes second nature.Any help let me know.There is plenty who im sure will offer also.best of all enjoy it.

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Kevin

Definitely!!

I thought I new how to cast overhand with a double hander and wanted spey lessons. I booked one with Ally Gowans who started by asking me to do my 'normal' cast. He looked at me like a dog that had sh!t on the carpet and spent the next two hours re-teaching me to overhand cast

I am a big lad and had an appauling technique (self taught with a salmon rod )masked by brute force. Could cast an alright line but was struggling with shoulder pain after a days fishing and had even snapped a new rod clean mid cast....by the end of one lesson I was casting as far holding the rod with just my finger tips.

My trout casting accuracy is good but the leasson made me realise that some really bad habits have crept in over the years and I have lost distance. Unless a top competition caster , I doubt there is anyone on here that wouldn't take something out of a lesson with a top casting instructor. I reckon a session with him would get another 15% distance to my cast without any problem at all.

Also worth someone filming of photographing your cast....I will bet money it doesn't look like you think it does. Recently saw a picture of me casting and I was leaning heavily into my forward cast. Instantly knew it was wrong but unaware I was doing it.

I am not sure that £45/hour is that expensive to have instruction from someone who is professionally qualified. A reasonable comparison would be a PGA qualified golf pro...how much do they charge?

And instruction is not all about casting the entire line out. It is (or should be) up to the pupil.....which may mean delicate presentation casts and such like.

Ultimately it will prove to be a sound investment if you end up having more fun and catching more fish. And this should be the net result of instruction.

Why is it that people have the misguided idea that casting lessons are about distance?

Casting instruction is there to explain how the 'cast' works and how you can get the rod / line combination to present the fly where you want it. It teaches you the skills to be able to adapt to conditions whether that's the wind or the location. River fishing is a prime example of where instruction is invaluable - a slack line cast, a mend, a roll cast, a spey cast, casting in a horizontal plane etc etc all valuable and enjoyment enhancing skills.

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[I]"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."[/I] Roderick L Haig-Brown

[url]www.wildfly.net[/url]

[url]http://www.gameanglinginstructors.co.uk/[/url]

I think one of the best things about having a casting lesson is simply that you will (should) have a totally unbiased opinion of your performance by someone who makes a living at the game.
I am not a qualified caster; but I was a guide, ghillie and casting instructor for John Norris of Penrith from 1994 to 97, when there weren't any 'pros' around Penrith. TBH, although the clients improved under my care, and the feed back seemed to be OK -- I heard no complaints -- I wish that I had been qualified.
One thing I did know to be correct, I used to video the more stubborn pupils in action, while studying their technique at a distance. Then, at lunch-time or tea break, I showed them the results on a portable TV set, plugged into the dashboard of the car. They couldn't argue about what I was trying to correct, as they saw it for themselves. I wonder how many professionals do that? I am sure it helped them adapt more quickly.
It's just a thought, intended to be of help. Terry C
£ 45 per hour? I got £ 7.50 for casting, £ 50 per day for guiding, teaching fishing and 'reading the water', for doing something in my early retirement that I loved. Was I worth more? Not in my book.