YOUTH FLY-FISHING DAY FEATURES STRONG CAST.

Byline: Keith Lair Staff Writer

FOLLOWS CAMP - The Arroyo Flyfishers Club was having a good problem.

Midway through its fifth annual Youth Fly-Fishing Fair along the East Fork of the San Gabriel River, the El Monte high school club was out of rods. All 20 were being used and more children were streaming into the Follows Camp site.

Seven-year-old Aaron Forburger of Glendora was down on the stream, continually working on his 10 o'clock-2 o'clock casting motion with former club president Nicholas Pan of El Monte. Nine-year-old Cheyenne Wingate of Pasadena, waiting for a rod, examined the river's insects.

There were 45 children and 15 adult instructors at the annual clinic, which was offered by the Federation of Fly Fishers's Southwest Council. Arroyo High science teacher Frank Kuhn, the Arroyo club's faculty adviser and FFF Southwest youth director, organized the event with help from the Pasadena Casting Club, Downey Flyfishers and San Fernando Valley-based Sierra Pacific Flyfishers.

Pasadena master instructors Bob Blackburn and Bob Moore offered casting instruction along with 16 Arroyo club members. Don Mayo of the Downey club showed how to tie flies and Kuhn led groups in bug fact-finding trips.

``The kids do better teaching the kids,'' Kuhn said. ``Both are out there having fun. The adults can get too serious.''

And it was a good thing they were having fun, too. Because of a fire on a nearby northern ridges of the canyon, the Department of Fish and Game was unable to make a scheduled plant of rainbow trout into the river. Only one fish, a 3-inch native rainbow, was landed.

``It's a lot of fun,'' said Forburger, who never had fished. ``It's tiring, too.''

``It's a lot of fun, but it was hard,'' Wingate said.

That left bug-finding the hit of the day. Dipping specimen flasks into the water and under rocks, the young anglers found snail eggs, diving beetles and caddis flies.

``It's like a jungle out there,'' Kuhn explained. ``You have bugs going after bugs and trout going after the bugs. For the smallest of bugs, it's like facing a Tyrannosaurus rex.''

Forburger was seeking a Cub Scout badge for his efforts.

``It's amazing,'' his mother, Anne, said. ``You join scouting and you learn along with the kids.''

Pearl Shen of Arcadia watched her 8-year-son, Lester, try fishing for the first time, too.

``I don't even know what a fly is,'' she said. ``This is very interesting.''

Blackburn, a Pasadena resident, had Lester casting proficiently in about 20 minutes.

Former Temple City resident Matthew Reyes was making his third consecutive visit to the clinic. His father, Mark, explained that the 9-year-old from Corona anticipates going each year, even though it is the only time he fly fishes.

``We go fish regularly in the High Sierra, but we use a regular rod and reel,'' Mark Reyes said.

It's a battle, Moore said, those in the fly-fishing community fight all the time.

``It's easy to teach them,'' the Pasadena resident said. ``But it gets harder to keep them here when they become teen-agers. They get involved in other pursuits and may not pick it up until they're a little older.''