Fly fishing hooks anglers as much as anglers hook fish on the fly. Every angler has a story about the first time they caught a fighting fish with a fly rod. It may have started at age eight on Eagle Lake with granddad, or it may have happened during the golden years, filling the void of the daily grind with a newly found passion. Those who worry about the future of the sport in an era when video games and social media dominate the attention of young people wonder how it’s possible to put them in the way of having that primal, life-changing experience. One way to do so is for a high school history teacher to invite them to spend an afternoon fishing the upper Owens River.
That high school history teacher is me. I moved to Mammoth Lakes, California, in 2004 to teach at the local high school and coach alpine skiing. That is where I was hooked on fly fishing. This is the story of how I found a way to pass on my passion for fly fishing to a lot of high school kids over the years.
The ski resort town of a population of about eight thousand full-time residents adopted me fairly early on. I was teaching their kids, coaching kids on the mountain after school, and accepted as a local. That’s when the fly-fishing bug bit me — hard. I hooked into my first fish using a fly rod on the last Saturday of April 2006. I was stripping streamers on Rush Creek in the glorious June Lake Loop, a natural transition from tossing Thomas Bouyant spinning lures the year before.
My new-found enthusiasm for fly fishing was uncontrollable, and this is when the idea unfolded: I approached my high school administrator, Mike DeRisi, with the request to start a fishing club — “A fly-fishing club, after school with me. A class that’s free to the school.” I had done enough research to know what I was requesting. “This is an opportunity for the kids to learn about entomology, hydraulics, ichthyology, and more,” even though I knew very little at the time about these topics. Mike told me to have each kid kick in a little for gas money, sign a liability release form, and I could have an official Mammoth High School Fly Fishing Club. There was just one small problem.
I was an enthusiastic newbie fly fisher who knew almost nothing about actual fly fishing, and I had a dozen eager kids signed up who wanted to learn to fly fish. Fortunately, though, there exists a really impressive crossover from the ski world into the fly-fishing world, and at this point, I was fairly good friends with a handful of guides and other fly-fishing junkies in town. So I picked up the phone and called every guide whom I knew personally, along with every outfitter. I told them about the idea that I had to take the local kids fly fishing after school. These people have a vested interest in the future of the sport, and they saved my bacon.
Rick Flamson of Rick’s Sports Center donated about five rods and reels. Tim Alpers invited us to fish Alpers Ranch — more than once. Bill Nichols, the manager of Hot Creek Ranch at the time, took us onto the ranch for an afternoon. I had a lot of local guides step forward and offer their time pro bono for an afternoon on the water. Kittredge Sports, Trout Fly, Ernie’s Ski and Tackle, and Wilderness Outfitters all helped out. I even wrote letters to companies in the industry and got donations such as lines from Cortland and tying tools from Terra Fly Tools. The Southwest Council of Fly Fishers International got word of what I was doing and signed me up for their Trout in the Classroom program. This was full committal.
I collected $30, if memory serves me right, from every kid who initially signed up, and a simple liability release form that I stitched together in 15 minutes. Moms and dads signed something saying that they wouldn’t file suit if their kid was washed downstream. It probably wouldn’t have stood up in a court of law. I don’t know; I haven’t lost one yet. But it’s been years since I’ve collected any money from students for the outings. The California Education Code requires that students aren’t to be charged for school-sanctioned events, and I’m covered under the school district million-dollar insurance policy for every outing.
I was making things up as I went along during that first season. I would arrange with a guide to meet us on a specific body of water after school, and I shuttled a district van filled with giggling kids to a local fishery. Most of the times, this was Hot Creek. It’s close to school, you can wear tennis shoes to fish, and it is chock full of trout. I’ve also taken them over the years to such legendary fisheries as the lower Owens, the upper Owens, the San Joaquin, the East Walker, Rush Creek, Rock Creek, Gull Lake, Lake Crowley, and a few smaller creeks off the beaten path that will not be named.
Who have I taken fishing over the years? I don’t even know where to start on answering this one. I’d estimate that I’ve taken anywhere from two to three hundred Mammoth High School students fly fishing on local waters over the last fourteen years. The club traditionally runs from Opening Day in late April to the end of the school year around the middle of June. I’ve taken a few out at the start of the school year during the fall bite, as well, but football practice, volleyball practice, and cheerleading squad seem to get in the way of chasing trout during one of the most productive times of year to hunt them.
Some of the students over the years came out every chance they got — I usually have excursions twice a week, sometimes as many as three afternoons a week. Some have come along only a couple of times. I’ve taken students who joined just so they could lounge in the grass in the sun and watch their peers cast flies. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve taken many good kids fly fishing over the years. There are a lot of great memories, a lot of new ones being made.
A typical afternoon, if there is such a thing, starts with stringing up either tenkara rods or Western rods for the kids and putting them on the water to fish. It is an informal club. I take whoever shows up in my classroom at 3:05 p.m. If I have only a couple, those two get a lot of individual instruction for the next three hours. If I end up with half a dozen, it is a very entertaining social event, but the instructor-to-angler ratio drops significantly, and I’m usually just lining them up to cut off bird’s nests and rerig rods. Not always, though. It’s always better to be lucky than good, and I’ve taken several inexperienced anglers to a creek, only to see us pull off the small miracle of hooking several fish. All the fish go back into the water, not always to the satisfaction of every angler, but the benevolent dictator in me demands that we practice catch and release. I attempt to teach conservation and ethics when on the water. We’ve also participated in a couple of creek cleanups.
If I have an experienced angler or two in the group, I ask the better one to team up with a neophyte and share what they know. To teach is to learn twice, a truth I learned in grad school studying education. Conversations in the van on the way to any fishery usually include a recap of the fundamentals of fly fishing and what to expect for the day. They are high school kids, so some chats involve anything other than the target lesson.
I ask nothing personally from the school district. I’ve always volunteered my time, but I come out ahead on the deal in the end. It led me eventually to guiding professionally myself during the summer. But I do this for the kids. Well, and for the unpredictable but immeasurable amount of entertainment that goes along with it. I’d be glad to have a chat with anyone who would like to start such a club for their local school. It’s a noteworthy cause, hooking kids on fly fishing, and it’s fun for everyone.
Chris Leonard can be reached at 11053feet@gmail.com.