Lost and found

Nine years ago, Barbara and I participated in teaching a Sport and Recreation Education Program (SAREP) class that was run by Lisa Shaver and Joe McFadden at the Catskill Fly Fishing Center. The attendees were girls and boys 11 to 12 years old. The youngsters were enthusiastic students.

The program was worthwhile but contained the same fatal flaw as other similar programs put on by local Trout Unlimited (TU) chapters—the only exception being the program being put on by Kurt Nelson, of the Al Hazzard Chapter. Usually, the seed is planted but then the sprouts are abandoned to the tares and weeds before they have a chance to flower.

One young boy at the SAREP class so clearly longed to become a fly fisher that he touched our hearts. While not yet fully fledged, he surely longed to fly. Barb and I made an arrangement with his mom. She would bring him to Roscoe and we would take him fly fishing with us for several hours. We would then return him to Roscoe and his mother’s arms. During each trip, his fly-casting skills improved. He learned and relearned the necessary knots until he could easily tie them on his own. By the following year, his casting was a pleasure to watch, a perfect back cast, that vital brief pause, then the forward snap of the rod. He had become a fine caster and shortly netted his first trout. Not long after that, he told us he intended to teach his younger brother the joys of fly fishing. He was only a teenager but already he was preparing to “pass it on.”

Unfortunately, divorce disrupted his life and we lost contact with young Kevin Burke for a long time. While wintering down in Texas, I take pleasure in rereading my previous years’ fishing logs that are peppered with pictures of places Barb and I have been and the companions we have fished with. One picture, over the years, haunted me. A young boy stands by our old Dodge van, fly rod in hand, smiling the smile of a fellow who has had more fun than he could have ever imagined. Gazing at that picture I wondered where is that young lad now? Did Kevin Burke still find himself occasionally, standing in a river, waving a stick? Until several weeks ago I had no way of answering that question. One day, I found the red light blinking on our answering machine. I hit the play button and a man’s voice filled the loft. “Hi Clem, this is Kevin Burke. Do you remember me?”

Great God! Did I remember him? Is the Pope Catholic? Do birds sing in the early morning? There was a small problem. Kevin left no phone number. He did mention he reads my column on the internet. Which should explain the curious last sentence in my previous column.

The young man did indeed call again. Barb and I had the pleasure of fishing with Kevin and his brother Glen, both now accomplished fly fishers, two days last week. As he had promised long ago, he had “passed it on” to Glen.

The latest issue of Trout magazine, the TU publication, contains a strong plea for us to “pass it on,” to the younger generation. Except for Kurt Nelson of the Al Hazzard Chapter, I am not aware of any TU members in this area who are willing to personally “pass it on.” A lack of time, or the fear of being sued after taking a young person out fly fishing, are the reasons for this apparent disconnect. Suppose no one had been willing to take Kevin Burke out along a trout stream? Kevin and Glen are now deciding which TU Chapter to join. Kevin has expressed an interest in learning to tie his own flies. Think about it. Pass it on.