After school fly fishing

"Ten and two," yelled Kevin Meredith to the students in his class. "Ten and two."

Like learning how to drive by placing your hands at ten o'clock and two o'clock, the activity Meredith is teaching uses the familar phrase to learn proper technique and, depending on who you ask this activity is even more of a right of passage into adulthood than learning how to drive, at least for Montanans.

"Ten and two," yelled Kevin Meredith to the students in his class. "Ten and two."

Like learning how to drive by placing your hands at ten o'clock and two o'clock, the activity Meredith is teaching uses the familar phrase to learn proper technique and, depending on who you ask this activity is even more of a right of passage into adulthood than learning how to drive, at least for Montanans.

He's teaching the students how to fly fish.

As part of an after-school program at Plains schools, Meredith started teaching fifth and sixth graders how to fly fish first on school grounds and now on a private pond owned by another of the school's teaching staff.

"We started just on the basic casting and then eventually we got to the point where they can tie their own hooks and they got for the most part the proper form. Some of them go a bit further than ten o'clock, two o'clock," says Meredith.

Fly fishing is perhaps most visually known for the false cast, as the fisherman or fisherchild in this case whips the fly in front of them and then behind their shoulder several times in order to draw more line out of their reel before casting it far into the water.

As for the "ten and the two," it reminds the students to draw their arm pivoting at the elbow no more than 45 degrees behind them and no more than 45 degrees in front of them.

It's a technique that Meredith says requires timing, which is the hardest for the fifth and sixth graders to master. Fifth grader Shayna Burgess, however, thinks the hardest thing is not getting snagged on a branch or in a bush. At one point, she had to receive help from Meredith in retrieving a caught line.

However, Shayna spent most of the two-hour fishing trip working on the roll cast, which she describes as raising her pole until it's pointing up and snapping it down in the water thus protecting her from snagging the fly on any thing behind, which is her favorite cast.

"My favorite is the roll cast," says Shayna. "If you do it right it just rolls out in a big loop and that's pretty cool."

For Shayna and the seven other children at the pond, the fly fishing opportunity came on the wings of REACH, Plains after school program designed to give children opportunities they wouldn't otherwise have while promoting healthy lifestyles.

Besides fly fishing, which got started this year with the help of Meredith who is in his first year at Plains school, there has also been an afterschool archery program, basketball program and also a summer program for three weeks during the long break from school.

The after school program originally started three years ago by a grant from Century 21, which helped Meredith buy the fly rods from Cabellas in Missoula.

However, it was Cabella's generosity that helped keep the kids well supplied.

After buying the fly rods, Meredith wrote a letter to Cabellas asking if they would be willing to donate any other gear to the kids participating in the program and a week later Cabellas sent him 15 miniature fly fishing leathermen's and a fly tieing box, which the school used as prizes for a fly fishing competition that the class participated in before their pond experience.

In many ways, Meredith is the perfect fly fishing instructor for the students, not only has he had a passion for the hobby that he has loved ever since he learned it as a seventh grader, but he also learned it from his teacher at the time, Jamie French who taught at Paradise School.

"The initial interest was sparked by him," says Meredith. "I think it's a great life hobby to get into. I love it. So I figure some of these kids have got to like it especially in Montana."

It turned out to be a tough day of fishing for the kids on Thursday.

Although they easily surrounded the private pond by sheer numbers, creating what Meredith jokingly referred to as the fishing gauntlett, it seemed like the fish all grew wise and huddled down into the deepest part of the pond out of the reach of eight young and eager anglers, after sixth grader Warren Wood caught a fish within minutes of arrival.