A Boyd's Eye View: Finding a way to get kids into fishing.

For the past few years or so I have been asked to speak to a group of youngsters in a local summer-school class that are learning all about fishing. It's honestly one of the funnest things I get to be a part of and I look forward to it every year. The first few years I did this I spoke primarily about what was involved in producing a fishing TV show. I told a few entertaining stories, talked about how they could go about making their own fishing videos, and then the kids got to watch an episode of the program I was involved with. But the last time I did this, I sat back and observed the kids and realized that while they were watching the TV show they weren't really learning about fishing; I was simply entertaining them, not engaging them in the sport. I realized I needed a new plan.

I began to think about what it was that got me so fired up about fishing as a youngster and how I was introduced to the sport. Like so many of us, I was lucky to have family that fished and were willing to get me involved. My grandfather and uncles were my early mentors, teaching me the basics and getting me out on the water. And while those experiences obviously played a key role in my love of fishing, I can honestly say there was one special moment in my past that set my path to where I am today, and it happened in an upstairs closet of my grandmother's house.

My Grandma Boyd was tiny in stature but big on self reliance. She'd worked in a clothing factory most all her life operating large pressing machines. But while digging around in a closet in the seldom-used upstairs of her house one day I discovered a box that piqued my interest. When I opened it, I found it was filled with hooks and feathers and thread and a fly tying vise. My initial thought was that it must belong to my granddad. I mean, I knew he fished alright, but as far as I knew he was a bank-sittin' catfish kinda guy, not one that would use a fly rod. I took the box downstairs to ask Grandma about the items I had found.

"Oh my", she was obviously taken back by my discovery. "I have not seen those things in many years. I didn't even know they were still around." As it turned out, the fly tying materials were hers. The story goes that one day a man from Montgomery Ward came to the clothing factory where she worked to enlist a handful of willing ladies to learn to make flies that were to be sold via the Montgomery Ward catalog. Grandma figured she could use the extra money and signed up. She was taught to tie a half dozen popular fly patterns including a couple streamers, an Adams, a Royal Wulff and a few others. She told me she was then supplied with a box of materials, a vise and a bobbin along with some shipping envelopes. She tied flies in the evening after dinner and once she got a couple dozen finished, she would ship them off in the envelopes provided and a week or so later she'd receive a check. She made about twenty five cents for every fly she tied. It was only a few extra bucks every month, but back then, it was a nice bonus.

So she sat me down and taught me the basics of tying a fly. I didn't fly fish, but it was the idea of making my own fishing lures that got me so excited to learn. Within a few years I was making fishing lures out of all kinds of things. I purchased some materials from mail-order catalogs, but using things like tableware and old costume jewelry also proved effective. Some of my creations were junk, but a few actually caught fish, and the satisfaction of catching a fish with a lure I made myself was immeasurable. 

That was the passion I wanted to instill in the kids in the fishing class. So the next time I showed up to speak to the group, I came toting a box of feathers, thread, hooks, split rings, wire, 

Speaking to the River Studies class about making fishing lures.

beads and even some old silverware - all sorts of things I could show them that they could use to make fishing lures themselves. The effect was more than I could have ever hoped for. The kids were engaged. They asked question after question, their minds churning as they came up with ideas of their own. The instructor for the class later told me I had created "some monsters" as the kids were excited to head out on their next class fishing outing to try the lures they had made at home after my visit.

Those of us in the fishing industry are constantly talking about ways to grow the sport. Putting rods and reels in the hands of kids and getting them out fishing is no doubt great and effective. But if you can tap into a kids own creativity and show them how it can relate to fishing - that's a special gift you can give a young angler. At least that's my Boyd's Eye View on it. Carry on.