1 - Some background

I’m English and grew up fishing the Warwickshire Avon, the Thames and a number of still waters around the country where I picked up Fly Fishing.
About 8 years ago I was moved to Germany by my employer where I began to understand the complex nature of the German Fishing Licensing scheme.
Firstly it varies regionally, but follows a basic theme:
1) In order to fish anywhere, you need a license
2) In order to be able to buy a license (1…5, 10 year licenses are available) you need to pass an exam.
3) In order to sit (and pay for) the exam, you need to have official evidence that you have attended 40 hrs of lessons (again – this precise number may vary by state)
4) Once you have done all this, and got the license, then you will probably need to join a club in order to fish the water you want (though there are national waters) – and clubs are also regulated in terms of membership: they are assigned a certain allowed number of members dependent upon the length of water bank they own/rent (I have only ‘heard’ this information so have yet to verify) – so membership waiting lists can be up to 18mnths!
There were a couple of key issues here (disregarding the cost):
1) The time commitment – different states offer different solutions, some provide a week long intensive training leading up to the exam, which means you will need to take a week off work, whilst others use up every weekend in a month meaning that you do not need to take any time off, but that you need to at least be in town (not traveling) and willing to give up all this time.
2) The language – I had studied German at school so got back to that level pretty quickly, but this was pretty basic, and the fishing course would introduce some pretty specific vocabulary in a local dialect (not ‘Hoch Deutsche’ or ‘High German’)
Anyway, 3 ½ years later I still had not taken the lessons so had gone without fishing, but found out that we (I was now married) had the opportunity to spend 3 yrs in the US – which really opened up a whole new world of fishing!!
I joined the local Fly Fishing Club (http://www.buckeyeflyfishers.com/) where I was introduced to small-mouth Bass fishing on some of the streams running through Kentucky and Trout in Tennessee (particularly the Smokey Mountains)… Absolute Paradise!
I could spend a lot of time reminiscing here, but I’ll try to keep to theme…
So eventually (earlier this year) we moved back to Germany, where I once again took up complaining about not being able to fish, so for my birthday my wife announced that she had bought us fishing lessons, 4 weekends study before the exam in December… so this was it, time to get it done!