Sac-Sierra Trout Unlimited is looking for volunteers to instruct and assist kids as young as 4-years in fly casting. This highly rewarding activity requires only basic skills in fly casting. The only skill you really need is being good with kids.
As an active Trout Unlimited chapter, we attend many outreach events every year. At most of these events, we engage children (sometimes very young children) as well as adults. For the kids, we bring our Canvas Creek. Out of blue tarps and cardboard and paper mache’ we create a 40-foot-long creek complete with cardboard fish. Each fish is a representation of one of California’s native trout, and sports a functioning mousetrap for a mouth. Using small “micro-caster” fly rods, with yarn for line and lure, each kid tries to get a trout to “snap” at his fly.
Being an expert fly caster is not a requirement for volunteers! While you need to have a basic understanding of how to cast a fly rod (and we'll help you with that, if you'd like to learn), your primary function is to help your “sport” put his or her fly in the just right spot, and get the fish to “strike.” Some of these kids will be quite young, and very excited, and totally focused on the fish and not the fly line. Your most valuable assets will be patience, humor, and encouragement. The rewards of course are enormous. Finally, after helping to hook and land that monster trout, the volunteer’s job is also to ensure proper handling and release (a.k.a. resetting the mouse trap an dplacing the fish back on the creek).
The events at which our Canvas Creek appears typically run about 6 hours and are almost always outdoors. We do our best to ensure reasonable shifts for our volunteers, with plenty of breaks and refreshment.
See you on the creek!
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