Great post by 'milo; it sums up the day really well.
I'd also been looking forward to getting some proper casting tuition. Absolutely necessary, I thought, before venturing out onto the riverbank. Both from the point of view of safety ( mine and anyone else within flailing range ), and satisfaction. Watching a skilled fly caster practice his art is to see a demonstration of precision and aesthetics not seen in many other sports. And something to aspire to...
'Milo had bought his outfit, ( Greys GRXi 9ft 5/6 wt rod and matching reel ), before me, so I decided it would be a good idea to purchase likewise; my logic being that this would start us off on a level playing field. Should one of us have more difficulty than the other in picking up techniques, then our instuctor would simply have to look at ability levels, rather than compensating for differences in our kit.

On the morning in question ( and 'milo mate, I reckon your waders must be leaking, and some of that water has got into your brain. It was Tuesday, not Sunday...) we met at Droitwich and after Ian had transferred his kit into my car, ( and oh how much easier this is for the fly angler than the matchman...)
we made the hour's journey out to Pembridge. As always with anglers, the journey was filled with fishing talk, plus some light-hearted speculation as to what " Frank " would be like.
Some old geezer in a deerstalker and plus-fours? ( Not at all, as it turned out )
Arriving at the Court of Noke beat, Frank was already there, and had gone for a recce to check the river level and best wading spots. Looking back now, this was probably the aspect of the day that I enjoyed most; almost all of the day's instruction, and the couple of hours fishing we did afterwards was all done in the river.
Greetings and handshakes exchanged, we kitted up and made our way over to the water.
'Milo has pretty much covered the detail of our instruction, so no need for me to repeat it. Suffice to say that it was clearly explained, well demonstrated, and carefully paced. Frank watches his trainees closely, and when you start to show signs of 'learning fatigue' at a particular technique, ( and repetition is necessary to build 'muscle-memory' ), he will switch to something different, or take a break. I seem to suffer from a tendency to break my wrist on the backcast, and kept Frank busy with finding counter-measures to my sloppy technique.
And to refute the adage that "those who can, do; those who can't, teach", it was fascinating to see how quickly Frank could get thirty yards of line off my GRXi. And this wasn't 'showboating', it was in response to a request for a demonstration.
And in a short demonstration of upstream nymphing, he caught the only fish of the day...
Smartarse...
But all things considered, a great day out. I would not have had the confidence to try fly casting without some prior instruction. We learnt the basic techniques of overhead and roll casting, some 'improver' techniques (I'd never heard of a transition cast )... and left with a few exercises to help judge distance and power when casting in restricted swims.
And all done thigh-deep in a river, in some delightful Herefordshire countryside...
So many thanks to Frank for excellent tuition, and thanks to Codenamemilo for both suggesting this particular venture and being good company along the way; ( though any further insults to my traditional wide-brimmed, fly-adorned hat will be treated with appropriate contempt )...

Thanks for reading,
Tight lines,
Castaline

Two happy customers, nice one Frank

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