Teaching fly fishing

Published 1:33 pm Wednesday, May 11, 2011

I worry because most of the members of my fly fishing club are reaching geezer status.

Ditto for my fishing friends. This may have a lot to do with the fact that I’m getting old myself, but I don’t think it’s the main factor.

So I enjoyed seeing a group of young people at the recent Fl

y Fishing Fair in Ellensburg pull bugs out the river muck, tie some flies and do some fly casting.

Whether they will get interested in the sport or whether they just wanted to get out of school for half a day, I’ll never know. I have to say, though, that if I lived in Thorp like a lot of these kids did, I’d be fishing the Yakima River every day.

They certainly enjoyed themselves at the fly fishing “classes” and I’m sure they got a better sense of the link between bugs, fish and the sport and of the importance of clean water and a clean environment.

Kudos to Pat Herdt of Winthrop, the youth education committee chairperson for the state Federation of Fly Fishers. The kids event occurred on a Friday.

On Saturday, she and FFF state chairman Carl Johnson talked to a group of teachers from around the state about the program.

Let’s hope it continues and I’d also like to encourage fly fishers to develop their own programs with their local schools.

There’s a strong link between the environment and fly fishing. And it would be nice to get more young people involved to help preserve them both.