Teaching the art of fly fishing

My evenings the week of Monday, July 19 through Friday, July 23 were spent mentoring teenagers at the Trout Unlimited (TU) Water Camp. Kurt Nelson of the Al Hazzard Chapter, who has the overwhelming force of a whirling dervish, manages all the major and minor challenges of running this week-long operation. Eleven sturdy young men and two pretty young ladies participated in this year’s Water Camp. They came from as far as Hamburg, NY and the Borough of Queens in New York City.

During the day, they were taught knot tying, fly casting and fly tying. A few had some slight experience in fly fishing while others had never held a fly rod in their hands. Most of the mentors were recruited from the Al Hazzard Chapter; however, the Upper Delaware Chapter was represented by Tom Brown, Andy Boyar, Ms. Karol Sundholm and the Complete Tangler.

Each evening the students were taken to the West Branch of the Delaware to sharpen their casting and fishing skills. Monday evening at Hale Eddy they were a pretty raggedy crew. By Friday, their casting skills were vastly improved. Loren Williams, who is the head coach of the United States Youth Fly Fishing Team, is a great teacher, and he worked with all the students. His nymph fishing demonstration wowed the kids when he caught two trout in only 10 minutes.

I had the pleasure of mentoring Cody Nguyen of Scotia, NY, Ms. Lydia Yang of Queens and Zach Tone of Hamburg. Normally, mentors do not accompany the same student more than once. On the last evening, Zach surprised me by asking to have me as a mentor for a second time. Now Zach is a neat young man, but I fear he is a poor judge of talent. I do owe him an apology. He identified a tree at the Deposit location as being a hickory tree. I told him it was not. The following week Barbara and I fished at that spot. There were a number of hickory nuts lying on the lawn beneath that very tree. The young man simply had been too polite to point out my ignorance.

This Water Camp is a marvelous undertaking. The Cortland Company should receive accolades for the tremendous support they give to this project. Kurt “Mayfly” Nelson and those who volunteer their time are to be commended. (Even the one who cannot tell the difference between a hickory tree and a forsythia bush.)

Where should we go from here? I would hope that every chapter that has one of the students in their chapter area would put that student on their newsletter mailing list. One or two people should be named to make personal contact with them on the Internet or telephone. A chapter member might offer to take them fishing or offer to give them additional instruction in fly tying. Yeah, yeah, I know, there is a lawyer and a lawsuit hiding behind every hickory tree. “He who lives in fear lives only half a life.”

I hear so many complaints that there are too many gray heads at TU functions. There was not a single gray hair on the heads of the young folks I mentored. Also they still have all of their hair. We need to make clear to them that TU both wants and needs them. OK, New York State chapters, go forth and get them.

- Clem Fullerton