Once Upon A Time
In 2007, I walked down the slope into McCrea Park (Oakland, California) where the Leona Casting Pools are found. That was 15 years ago! Back then, I started to go to the pools to become a better caster. I was 38 years old… a pretty good fly fisherman, but a terrible caster. My father and I started fly fishing when I was a teenager, and we taught ourselves to cast.
That day, I set up my rod at a picnic table beside the two pools and during breaks from casting, I watched in awe as caster after caster formed tight loops. While I casted, a guy rocking a ponytail sauntered over, and with a joking tone of disgust, he exclaimed, “I can’t watch you anymore. Let me help you.” If I wasn’t so eager to learn to cast better, I may have been offended. Instead, I was grateful. His name was Charlie Kobata – the nicest guy at the pools.
Charlie gave me my first casting lesson that – informal as it was – I had ever received. He told me that I had to use my elbow more and bring my hand forward and back. It seemed to help, and I was thankful.
The Master
At my next visit, John Wurzell was giving a private lesson. I can’t remember the student’s name (it will come to me later), but he was a dentist. More importantly, the student demonstrated visible improvement.
After the lesson, John took his Sage TCR off of the rod rack and cast his fly into the branches of the oak tree on the far side of the small pool. I had never seen anyone cast that far, and I knew that he was a special caster. When he took a break, I introduced myself, and I asked for one lesson. “One lesson?” he asked incredulously, pushing the two ends of his moustache down with his thumb and finger.
The presence of so many good casters at the pools misled me to believe that a single tweak – I didn’t know what it was, but I just needed to find the Wizard to tell me what it was – could transform my casting into fly casting. I was naïve. At the time, I just didn’t appreciate how complicated and unintuitive fly casting mechanics were.
“The student sets the price,” John informed me. I am embarrassed to say that I offered $20 for a one-hour lesson, but he graciously accepted. He asked me to roll cast after we found an open casting box. I recalled a YouTube video where the person described the action of a roll cast as chopping wood, so I pretended to make some firewood. When I turned to look at John after a few roll casts, he had the look of “one lesson isn’t going to fix this”. Like most casters, I was probably not as good as I thought as I was. BTW, roll casting is not like chopping wood.
When I got home that night, I decided to refer to John as The Master. I wanted my non-casting friends to know that my new teacher was a skilled caster and that he deserved tremendous respect. I never used the name, The Master, in front of John, but I wonder if I should have… so that he knew how much I revered him.
I received many more $20-lessons, and slowly, I started to improve. As I got to know The Master, he told me that he used to be a carpenter and that he gave fly casting lessons for money since he couldn’t work anymore. He walked with a slight limp, so I assume that it was his leg that prevented him from working.
Over time, my stroke became more vertical, and I was starting to form some respectable (good but not great) loops. The Master had thankfully gotten me through the ugly phase.
The Master suddenly passed away from cancer. One day, he was not at the ponds, and then a few weeks later, a bunch of us were attending his services. During the celebration of his life, his family discovered that The Master had helped many, many people become better fly casters. That list was punctuated with names like Ralph Hardin and John Thiele. Both became tournament-winning casters, and in 2017, John Thiele made the US Fly Casting Team. For many years after The Master’s passing, people would come down to the pools asking about the instructor with the big moustache.
There wasn’t a single thing that The Master taught me that has turned out to be wrong. I have often wished that The Master could see me now.
The Master Of The Master
A few months later, I saw JB Walker at the pools. He forms the tightest loops that I have ever seen (though Vince Goehner is getting damn close). JB was getting a lesson from an unfamiliar figure. The teacher made JB do roll cast after roll cast. Naturally, I tried to listen in on what the teacher was saying. The teacher probably noticed how interested I was in the lesson, because after JB’s lesson, he came over and introduced himself as Chris. At the time, I didn’t know that he was Chris Korich, the winner of countless medals in national and international events, but I recognized his skills as both a caster and a coach.
I had hoped that he would come over and help me with my casting. I was grateful when he told me in a booming voice, “Let me show you one thing. If you work on this one thing and you show improvement, I will show you another thing.”
The “one thing” that evening was the importance of aiming. So, I worked on hitting the targets, eagerly waiting to see him again so that he would teach me “another thing”. Our meetings were never scheduled, so I bumped into him only sporadically.
Just after I had met Chris, my mother came to visit me. Naturally, I brought her to the casting ponds where champions trained, and I had hoped that Chris would be there. He was. I excitedly introduced him to my mother, and we invited him to dinner.
I told my mother about Chris’ achievements over spicy tofu soups. After dropping Chris off at his car, my mother asked me whether I could beat him. I distinctly remember thinking that I could never be as good as Chris. I replied, “Mom, he’s a World Champion!”
My mother has always pushed me to be the best. Whether or not I liked it, she has made me the person who I am. Chris has said that my drive and meticulousness come from her, and that I should thank her.
Chris would give me more than just “things” to work on. Early on, he gifted me Eldon Maddern’s Fenwick Eagle 85-7 fly rod so that I had some better equipment with which to practice. It continues to be my favorite fly rod that I own, and I use it in competition whenever possible.
As my casting improved, Chris encouraged me to cast at the local tournaments. I had never played an individual sport. I always gravitated to team sports where responsibilities were shared. If I didn’t do well in a fly casting event, there was only one person to blame: me. It was a new experience.
Fighting the mental demons was probably why I avoided individual sports. But, I knew that casting in the local tournaments was “one more thing”, and that if I didn’t enter the local tournaments, Chris might stop telling me “another thing”.
After a number of local tournaments, Chris told me to go down to Long Beach, California for the Southwestern Casting Tournament – a regional tournament that brought casters from as far away as Florida. After a few Southwestern and Northwestern Tournaments, Chris encouraged me to go to the United States National Casting Championships, where at my first national competition in 2015, I finished in the top ten of the Men’s Division.
The Most Knowledgeable Fly Caster Who Can’t Cast
Over the next few years, there was a time when Chris and I weren’t meeting at the pools as often. Our schedules didn’t create opportunities when we both happened to be at the pools at the same time. So, I recruited the help of my girlfriend, Chi Quang. At first, I asked her to watch my rod tip. I worked on dampening the rod at the end of the back cast. Then, I worked on tightening the loop of my back cast, the timing of when the back cast straightened out so that I could start the front cast, the trajectory of the back cast, etc.
Chi can’t cast. She has never wanted to cast. When we are fishing on the river, she enjoys having me cast and letting her have every second drift. She wants everyone to know that she’s a really good fisher-person.
Chi is the most knowledgeable person – who doesn’t cast – when it comes to fly casting. With all the things that I ask her to watch and the technical discussions that I have with Chris when he comes over for dinner, she has become a formidable observer.
Yesterday, she pulled me aside and told me to watch how well Aram Aykanian uses his shoulder. Other days, she will tell me to look at Luis Montes, Audrey Wilson or Whitney Gould. And then, there are the days that she has no shortage of observations for people going through the ugly phase.
My fellow casters joke that I cast better when Chi is present at a tournament. I don’t know if they are really jesting or whether they are trying to get into my head when she can’t make a competition. Either way, they are probably right. If nothing else, she helps calm my nerves.
How Did I Do At My First World Championship?
At the last Nationals in 2019, I finished fourth overall, which qualified me for the US Fly Casting Team. Making the national team had always been a goal, and I was extremely happy with this accomplishment. The pandemic prevented subsequent Nationals in 2020, 2021 and 2022, so I remained on the US Team.
The pandemic also cancelled the World Championship of Fly Casting in 2020. Since the World Championships are held every two years, its cancellation gave me time to contemplate going to the next one. At the beginning of 2022, I resolved to go, so I started to train earnestly.
Over the last six months before the competition, Chris and I started to meet weekly. The training sessions included Zachary Wohl — a relatively new up-and-coming caster. As I look back over the last 14 years since meeting Chris, he has kept his word. You would think that he would run out of “one more things”, but such has not been the case. In truth, I hope that the list never ends.
A few months before the World Fly Casting Championships, Chris brought a group of us down to Long Beach to train with Henry Mittel – the overall National Casting Champion. Henry helped me adjust my grip tension.
Chris also brought Maxine McCormick – 2016 and 2018 World Champion in Trout Accuracy – to the Oakland pools twice. Just watching her cast improved my casting. As we waited for Chris to finish casting a round during a training session, I asked Maxine how she deals with casting after Chris when he posts a high score. She replied, “I don’t think about his score.” Her innocent answer gave me valuable insight about how a two-time World Champion thinks during competition.
In August of 2022, I came back from the World Fly Casting Championships in Norway. I won silver in Trout Accuracy in the Men’s Division. Gold went to Glenn McCormick, Maxine’s father. I was grateful that Alice Gillibert and Elaine Gong decided to come to Norway to cheer on the American team. They made the competition feel like a local tournament.
The World Fly Casting Championships was a wonderful experience, and I have learned so much about casting.
Epilogue: A Never Ending Fairy Tale
I still go to the casting pools to become a better caster. Perfecting a craft is an endless quest. The fact that there doesn’t seem to be an end is one reason fly casting appeals to me.
On this odyssey, I have gotten to know some wonderful people very well. But, I got to know one person better than any other: myself. I learned so much about my mental strength, my physical limits, my potential.
Being a university professor. I know that, at times, teaching can be a thankless job, and I have always made a point to thank my casting instructors. With this post, I would like to thank my teachers again. I have been extremely fortunate to have met such gifted people.
To my surprise, I have also improved my casting by teaching others to fly cast. For example, my casting has become, in part, more compact because I want to cast the way that I tell Bruce Smith to cast. There are others whom I help once and never see again.
I am truly indebted to those who I mentioned here, and the countless others who remain unrecognized. Thank you so very, very much.