Thursday, April 30, 2020

AFR teaming with Kisatchie club for "Tying Tuesdays"

With social distancing guidelines in place for the foreseeable future, the Acadiana Fly Rodders have joined up with the Kisatchie Fly Fishers of Alexandria for a series of virtual fly tying sessions using the Zoom video conferencing application.

Zoom meetings can be attended on a computer (PC or Mac), smartphone, tablet, or other device with internet access.  From a participant standpoint, Zoom is free, and fairly simple to use.

The Kisatchie club purchased the Zoom Pro Plan, which has unlimited number of sessions, unlimited time duration, and up to 100 participants. After their first session, members of the KFF Tying Committee decided to invite Acadiana club members to participate in, and in some cases lead, future sessions.

Tying sessions will be every Tuesday at 6:00pm. Sessions will alternate each week between a fly pattern (or two) one week, followed by a "Techniques Roundtable" the next week. 

The biggest challenge will be for members to acquire the materials for the upcoming flies to be tied.  Bill Morrison with KFF has a materials list for each fly he has emailed out.  If you did not receive this email, check with Bill, Mike White or Flip Siracusa. Our friends at Pack & Paddle should have most of these materials, but some may have to be ordered.
 
In order to join each tying session, members will need to enter the meeting ID and password for that session. It will be emailed to members in advance. Each tying session will begin with the instructor demo tying the fly without pause, so it can be recorded for posting to Youtube. After the demo, the group will start over and everyone will tie the pattern together. During the 2nd half of the session, participants can "raise a hand" to ask questions.

Meeting Schedule  (all times 6:00pm)

Tuesday, May 5 - Tying Techniques, Q&A
Tuesday, May 12 - Wooly Bugger - Gene Taylor
Tuesday, May 19 - Tying Techniques, Q&A
Tuesday, May 26 - Matt Bennett's Lunch Money streamer - Jim Johnson