I have entered my boys in the Youth Fishing Clinic at Castalia the last three years or so and finally this year my youngest got drawn. We go on July 6th. I am looking forward to it. I have a co-worker that is familiar with it and he has told me a bit about it. He has said that catching fish is not a chore whatsoever as the fish are really stacked in that area. He suggested that he take his time to try and target certain larger fish. This is a catch and keep clinic and when you get your 3 fish you are done. I am hoping he does not finish in 15 minutes.
If anyone else has gone to these clinics I would be interested in hearing your comments. I am not really a flyfisherman and only dabble in it with an inexpensive setup so my knowledge of this is quite limited.
Hope he has fun and learns a lot. I have always wanted to fish there just once for the heck of it, but I'll be done fishing in a couple minutes haha. I'm sure you guys will have a blast though. Maybe cut the points off the hooks and when you get the fish close to shore give it some slack and lose the fish on purpose lol.
He will have a ball. Like dcfisherman said, it is a chore to keep the smaller ones off the hook. However, if you walk around a bit, you can find a few bigger fish feeding in their own lanes. It is a great place to get some good video.
Finally getting around to posting a followup to the youth clinic trip. We were there last Friday and had a great time although it was 100° out there in the middle of the afternoon. I believe there was about 15 youths involved and they actually had enough volunteer fly guys to have a one-on-one instructional. The heat probably shorted the day a bit as far as the dry land clinic but they still spent maybe 30-45 minutes teaching the basics. The fish are totally stacked in the stretch of the creek so catching fish is an almost certainty but it still made for a blast for the youngsters. My son took maybe 10 minutes to get his first solid hookup and landed it. He had lost a couple smaller ones which was fine since it was catch an keep. It was nice to get an opportunity for the nicer size fish. He ended up with 2 fish that were about 3.25 and 3.5#. The third fish was probably almost 2#. I only have the one picture available right now from my phone and it was not the best quality. I believe this is the first fish.
I want to say thanks to the DNR for putting on this clinic for the youngsters and also a big thank you to the volunteers that come out and do the instruction!
Looks like you had a great time! Too bad that creek isn't wadeable, it would of been nice to be in that chilly water on a 100 degree day!
Yeah, they warned not to get in the creek and the reason they used was that it was deep but that it was also very cold. On a 100° day the cold aspect was more of an incentive than a deterrent.
My son finally won the lottery!!
My son finally won the lottery!!
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