Long Beach Casting Club May 2007

Yesterday, May 23, we (Long Beach Casting Club) had our first PHW session with patients at the Long Beach VA. Ten male and two female patients attended, along with the Director of Recreational Therapy. One individual declined to participate and caught up on sleep instead. The members of this group have psychological disabilities such as PTSD, not physical disabilities. Eight members of our club helped out, which was a very good ratio.

Carl Ronk of Terra Tools donated 15 sets of vices, bobbins, scissors, hair stackers, hackle pliers, threaders and whip finishers. Julie Bickford of San Jose donated the fly tying materials of her deceased father, Jack Faith, Navy, after hearing about PHW in the news. Bob Marriott’s Fly Fishing Store sold us the remaining materials we needed at cost. Stackpole Press donated the tying DVD and we purchased at half price 12 Basic Fly Tying books.

Mark Tsunawaki, who is the chairman of the five-month-long fly tying classes at our club, started with an orientation session. Frankly, I was worried that the group would lose interest during the talk about tools and hooks, but they didn’t. They practiced putting hooks in the vice, threading the bobbin, starting thread on the hook, and whip finishing. We only have one hour and could have used more time to practice. We had planned to not get together next Wednesday, but several in the group indicated an interest in more practice time for whip finishing before we actually start tying flies. Consequently, a few of us will go back next week for practice time, and then the classes will be every other Wednesday starting June 6, with supervised practice sessions on the intervening Wednesdays.

We were all pleased with the level of interest and participation because of the unique nature of this group. They did not individually volunteer to participate in PHW as seems to be the case elsewhere. This group votes whether or not to participate in activities; if the vote is affirmative, the entire group participates. So we knew that perhaps as many as 7 of the 15 regular members may have voted negatively, creating a challenge for us to get them interested and involved. Fortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case. They seem to be eager to read the book, practice more, and start tying flies. It was a very positive beginning.

Carole Katz