Fly Fishing - Using Videos as a Learning Tool

I always tell my friends or students what my father used to tell me "If you want to get started in any activity, go where that people get their stuff". If you are into fishing, go to a fishing store and look around, ask questions and look for the "ad wall" and you will find lots of information and people who can teach you. But what if you can’t find someone to teach you or if you are just curious about it? There is always a way to start called "instructional videos". You can find some of them in VHS, but now mostly all of them are now in DVD. It was in the mid 80’s when I was a fairly good playing the bass (the instrument, not the fish) when these videos started to be popular in music instruction. At that time they were fairly cheap. In these videos you can see some of your favorite players giving one-on-one lessons and watch them as many times as you need to. I have to say my playing did improve with this practice.

For this matter, fishing videos are the same; they teach you a new skill or help you improving one that you already have. Sure there are boring parts, like in the music instruction practicing music scales and modes, and on the fishing videos some of the explanations about things you already know.

I have to say that there is nothing like in person training, but this "new" modality of teaching and learning is also helpful. Consider two things: one is having someone you admire tell you his secrets and the other is the "distance learning" value based on constructivist principles, where you are required to invest more mental effort in the non-automatic processing of information.

For Fly Fishing there is a wide range of DVD’s and most of them are very informative and dynamic. One I like is "Trout Bum Diaries, Volume I: Patagonia". It might not be a "formal" instructional video but you can learn some things just by watching the expedition to the Patagonia and sharing the joy for the adventure with these guys. There are some other more "traditional" videos like the Bob Nudd’s series or "Atlantic Salmon - A Life on the Edge" which are also a great DVD’s.

Another way to learn from a video is to watch your favorite fisherman...

Yourself! Something you might want to do is this: I started taping my music gigs to show my students how practicing the boring music stuff is actually done in real life and for finding weak spots in my playing to fix. Later, I started taping myself while fishing to have some happy memories on video as well as to check out on things I do while fishing. This is a good idea if you want to have a record of your own improvement.

So maybe now you’ll want to consider getting fishing videos as your first contact with fishing if you are new to it, for your own amusement if you are an experienced fisher or just tape yourself to check improvements. Who knows? Maybe you can even start you own instructional series!