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PITTSBURG —
British novelist Frank Forester called fly fishing “the most beautiful of all rural sports.”
Scott Gorman, a professor in the Department of Health, Human Performance and Recreation, is sharing some of the art and beauty of the sport in a two-day fly fishing workshop Thursday and today. The workshop is offered for one hour of credit for PSU students or as a non-credit workshop for those simply wanting to learn to fly fish.
Thursday was devoted to learning basic fly fishing skills, and the students practiced in the student rec center and at University Lake. Today they’re on a field trip to Roaring River in Missouri to put the skills they learned into action.
There are nine students in the class, which Gorman has been teaching for 30 years.
“What’s unique about this is that classes give you a two hour block, and you get to cast maybe 25 or 30 times, then you go home and practice on your own,” Gorman said Thursday as his students practiced casting in the rec center. “Here they have all day and then they go to the lake and catch a couple panfish.”
Fly fishing is a form of fishing that requires skill at feeding the line from the pole. It’s different because standard fishing poles use weights to pull the line from the reel, but fly fishing uses the weight of the line itself. Thus the often large and bulbous arcs of line one sees about the fisher’s head; he or she is gradually feeding line out of the reel and using momentum to get the line and the fly to the desired location.
Gorman also taught the students how to manufacture fishing flies, which typically are made from feathers and string. Early today they departed to Roaring River, near Cassville, Mo.
Juliana Hughes is a graduate student at PSU and works in the rec center. She said she heard about the workshop and said it looked interesting.
“I never learned about how to fly fish and I was really curious,” Hughes said. “It always looked really relaxing.”
Gorman said he thinks he knows why it’s relaxing for millions of Americans.
“Trout simply do not live in ugly places!” Gorman said.
British novelist Frank Forester called fly fishing “the most beautiful of all rural sports.”
Scott Gorman, a professor in the Department of Health, Human Performance and Recreation, is sharing some of the art and beauty of the sport in a two-day fly fishing workshop Thursday and today. The workshop is offered for one hour of credit for PSU students or as a non-credit workshop for those simply wanting to learn to fly fish.
Thursday was devoted to learning basic fly fishing skills, and the students practiced in the student rec center and at University Lake. Today they’re on a field trip to Roaring River in Missouri to put the skills they learned into action.
There are nine students in the class, which Gorman has been teaching for 30 years.
“What’s unique about this is that classes give you a two hour block, and you get to cast maybe 25 or 30 times, then you go home and practice on your own,” Gorman said Thursday as his students practiced casting in the rec center. “Here they have all day and then they go to the lake and catch a couple panfish.”
Fly fishing is a form of fishing that requires skill at feeding the line from the pole. It’s different because standard fishing poles use weights to pull the line from the reel, but fly fishing uses the weight of the line itself. Thus the often large and bulbous arcs of line one sees about the fisher’s head; he or she is gradually feeding line out of the reel and using momentum to get the line and the fly to the desired location.
Gorman also taught the students how to manufacture fishing flies, which typically are made from feathers and string. Early today they departed to Roaring River, near Cassville, Mo.
Juliana Hughes is a graduate student at PSU and works in the rec center. She said she heard about the workshop and said it looked interesting.
“I never learned about how to fly fish and I was really curious,” Hughes said. “It always looked really relaxing.”
Gorman said he thinks he knows why it’s relaxing for millions of Americans.
“Trout simply do not live in ugly places!” Gorman said.
