By: Dennis Cook, Rocky Mountain Flycasters Chapter of TU, and Dan Omasta, Colorado TU Many youngsters want - but often lack - opportunities for recreation and fun in the natural outdoors. In 2010, the Rocky Mountain Flycasters Chapter (RMFC-TU) launched a Youth Day Camp designed to provide this opportunity. The first camp encompassed six full days of fishing, conservation, and classroom sessions in the Fort Collins area, and has been a huge hit every year since. Fifteen high school boys & girls (ages 14 through 17) from the Northern Colorado region are selected based upon their application and a brief essay describing their interests, background, and expectations from attending camp. Most campers typically have zero to very elementary fly fishing knowledge.
Basic fly fishing skills are taught by experienced RMFC members and St. Peters Fly Shop guides, but the camp isn't just about bringing kids outside and helping them catch fish. It provides information and activities that inspire the campers to become more aware of the need to protect and conserve our natural outdoors. Specialized content (such as trout anatomy) is provided by professionals from Colorado Parks & Wildlife, the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Colorado State University.
A capstone activity encompasses a half-day restoration project on a local stream, designed and supervised by the Wildlands Restoration Volunteers organization. As campers better understand the relationship of trout as an indicator of water quality, they gain appreciation for the need to protect our coldwater streams - while also discovering that fly fishing can become an enjoyable, lifelong pastime.
"My son has gained confidence in his fishing abilities and has taken away a sense of responsibility for our precious river and water resources," said one parent of a recent camper. "I really feel like he has a better understanding that we need to keep our rivers clean and take care of them for generations to come. He’s not taking them as much for granted anymore."
Beyond a nominal $30.00 acceptance fee, funding for camp is provided by generous corporate and individual chapter member support. Additionally, all fishing attire and equipment is provided by RMFC-TU. Camp activities occur on the Poudre River, Big Thompson River headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park, private ponds and Fort Collins Parks. Indoor classes are held in corporate and community conference rooms.
The RMF Youth Fly Fishing Day camp does a great job of teaching kids to fish and how to become successful anglers. But the six-day event is more than just a fishing clinic - it is a collaborative effort to prepare and inspire the next generation of stewards.
For more information, please visit the Rocky Mountain Flycasters' Youth Camp page.
Monday was the first full day of camp and after waking up, the kids went to the stream and pond at the ranch to learn about the entomology of the watershed. The kids took bug samples to learn about what the fish would be eating in the area and took water samples to determine the health of the stream and pond. After the sampling, students ate lunch and headed to nearby North Lake to fish for the afternoon. It wasn't long before kids started hooking into fish and in the first day over half of the kids had landed their first fish of the camp and for some, their first fish ever.
Over the first few days the kids had free time to tie flies and practice their fly fishing skills and on Wednesday they had a chance to hone in those skills and use the flies they have tied. The day started off by traveling to North Lake for the morning. While at North Lake kids were catching fish left and right and by halfway through the morning, everyone had caught a fish. After returning to the camp, the kids ate lunch and broke up into teams of three for some additional fishing. One group headed to some beaver ponds, another group fished the stream, and the third group fished a lake on the ranch property.
When the 15 campers arrived on June 11, there were nervous faces and uneasy feelings about what to expect for the upcoming week. But just a few days later on June 16 the campers had a hard time leaving one another. The friendships formed, the lessons learned, and the memories made will carry on forever and many students mentioned coming back in 2018.
This Spring, he graduated from Western State University in Gunnison majoring in Chemistry with an emphasis in Biochemistry. But he's leaving behind an incredible legacy of coldwater conservation leadership. In 2013, Adam founded The Gunnison Sockeyes, the first TU Costa Five Rivers collegiate club in the nation to found their club based on conservation rather than fly fishing. The club boasts over 160 members and has logged in excess of 220 man hours of service work in the Gunnison Watershed in the fields of Lake Trout Removal, Kokanee Salmon Spawning, Electroshocking, Stonefly Reintroduction and River Clean Ups.
Growing up on the banks of the Mississippi and experiencing its periodic floods gave me no background for understanding the water scarcity issues of the west. When the mighty Miss and its tributaries flooded they used to let us older boys out of school and permit trustee crews from the state prison to help sandbag. It was usually a problem of too much water, so I was fascinated by the complexity of water law created by the scarcity of water and the mission of TU to conserve and correct the mistakes of the past just seemed to me to make manifest sense.
My favorite fishing spot is any spot I happen to be in which harbors fish. I advocate carrying a flyrod in every vehicle because you never know when you will run into a fishing emergency! Although exotic locales beckon to many I have trouble getting too far away from my home rivers - and ponds. I flyrod a lot of local natural area ponds for warmwater species too. Also take a trip to Canada each June with a couple of RMF's founding fathers, but home waters are the preferred locales since they are close.
In the South Platte basin, Colorado TU and chapters worked to engage young, inner city, girls through the great outdoors by introducing them to fly fishing and conservation; CTU worked with Colorado Parks and Wildlife to reintroduce the Colorado state fish, Greenback Cutthroat Trout, to it's native watershed along the Front Range; Trout Unlimited tackled abandoned mine issues, and various chapters worked to repair their homewater streams from the devastating floods of 2013.
In the Colorado River basin, TU helped secure protections for the Roan Plateau and Thompson Divide from harmful oil and gas development, worked with local ranchers and farmers to improve the health of the Upper Colorado while enhancing agriculture water usage. TU also helped lead the Learning by Doing initiative that, among other things, secured $8 million in funds to protect and restore the Upper Colorado River.
In the Rio Grande basin, Trout Unlimited worked to protect the Great Sand Dunes Cutthroat from potential changes in the environment. The Rocky Mountain Flyathlon came to Saguache for the annual race and fishing events that help raise money for Colorado TU's work in protecting native trout and their habitats. The local chapter and Trout Unlimited also worked to repair sections of the Conejos and ensure that winter flows were hospitable for trout.
Parking lot to the River - Matching the hatch starts when you park the truck and continue on your way to the water's edge. While not the most appetizing script to read, plastered to your windshield and the grill of your car is a record of the bugs that were flying and hopping along the lake or river that you are planning to fish. The fragile wings of mayflies and sturdy grasshopper legs act like braille to the astute angler and are the first clues as to what flies they might fish that day. As you leave the parking lot and work your way down to the water, observe what is hopping and flying around you. Grasshoppers frantically leaping off the trail ahead of you, the wayward beetle landing on your shoulder, and the shrilling of the cicada, and caddis flies stirring into flight as you push through streamside trees are all indicators of food that might be falling or landing on the water.
Under the Water - It is beneath the surface of the water that trout do 75% of their feeding, and that's where the angler's most important information will be found. Using an Invertebrate Seine along the streambed and pulling rocks from the current to observe what is holding onto their surface will give you a detailed menu of which bugs are most abundant, as well as their size and color so that you can lay your fly box alongside and choose the closest match.
Recycle water:
After moving South in the early 1990s I transferred to the Southern Colorado Greenback Chapter of TU. After several years, I was on the Board again, serving mainly in the capacity of Communications Chairman. I will be retiring this year, but plan on maintaining an active role in the chapter. Hubby Paul and I are Life Members, and proud of that.
Kids’ education. Several years ago, Jenny Kedward from the local Sierra Club, Pat McGraw, then-President of our Chapter, and I collaborated to do a two-day summer camp program for 12-14 year olds in our community that concentrated on water education and fishing. We conducted it for four years in a row. Our chapter’s Frostbite Fish-Off Tourney, held for several years, is a close second.
