New Book / Testing techniques

As most of you know, my main, "forte" is salt water fly fishing. I was pleased that Peter Minnick sent me a new book which I've just finished reading and which will remain in my reference library.

.............Thought I'd pass the info on to those of you who may be interested:

This book has, as expected, an emphasis on a single species .... the striped bass. Despite this, the general principles of salt water fly fishing which the author covers pertain to many species around the globe.

Rick is a true expert on the subjects covered, which include fishing techniques, tackle and rigging tricks, and casting methods for the salt including single handed and double handed techniques, "both overhead", straight line casting and elliptical casts.

The information is up to date in every respect and right, "on target". The photos are spectacular.

I take issue with only one thing .... his opinion that the use of intermediate sink lines disturb the fish more than heavier sinking lines. I have found that intermediate lines disturb the surface less than either floating lines or heavier lines which tend to crash down even with good casting techniques and once on the bottom of the flat present more obvious disturbance than clear or transluscent intermediate sink or sink tip lines when retrieved...... especially with species much more wary and, "spooky" than stripers. This opinion of mine does not apply to fishing for stripers in deeper water .... only for flats fishing.

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Dusty Sprague and I have had recent notes on techniques for examining CCI candidates. He felt that it would be a good idea to visit this with our Study Group, since many of the Group are MCCI's and others are studying to become Master Certified at which point they will be participating in the Certification program as examiners. Below are a couple of the notes between us:-

This may be a good topic for the masters study group-forum.....these master candidates will be examiners someday and should know tips and techniques to relax their candidates.....and some of the relaxing techniques may benefit them as they prepare for their masters test too. A thought anyway.

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I had told Dusty that one of my pet peeves is the examiner who (perhaps unconsciously) bolsters his or her own ego by performing an exam in such a way that the candidate is unnecessarily intimidated. This makes it less likely that the candidate will pass .... not because of lack of knowledge or even casting or teaching ability but because of poor performance due to unwarrented fear alone. I have not seen this with our CBOG's recently, but with MCCI's who are testing. Since MCCI's are often part of the testing process at both CCI and MCCI testing levels, we felt the topic was timely.

Now that MCCI's are participating the the testing of new MCCI Candidates, the CBOG has wisely required that the new Master must attend, as an observer, at least one complete exam before being qualified to participate as an examiner as one of two MCCI's working with a CBOG lead examiner.

Dusty, in his message above, was referring to one method of trying to relax a candidate at test time which I have witnessed many times as Tom White performed an exam. At one point, he had performed more exams that any other single examiner.

Tom would sense an overly nervous candidate immediatly. He felt that his first job would be to relax him.

He'd tell the candidate that he'd be reviewing some paperwork on his clipboard while the candidate was invited to make some, "warm up" loops and distance casts.

Tom would pretend to review the stuff on his clip board while actually checking out the warm up activities out of the corner of his eye.

He'd then begin the exam after complimenting the candidate on whatever he'd noted as good performance.

If he'd seen one thing done especially well, Tom would start the exam with that task, feeling that early success would go a long way toward boosting confidence and leading to better achievements as the exam progressed.

Tom's smooth and delightful, unhurried manner went on to get the very best out of each testee ! Even if the candidate was unsuccessful (Tom was tough and held high standards) he/she left with a sense of having learned a great deal and of having been given a fair test.

Along with other topics, I'll be adding some tips for relaxing candidates ..... as well as tips for becoming more relaxed as one takes the exam. Perhaps you can add some for us.