Healing Spirit Fishing Trip

Post date: Mar 3, 2017 7:05:08 PM

An excerpt from the Rally Point Bugle published by Veteran's Haven North and written by Daniel W. For those who are interested, the entire publication, including pictures that go along with this article, are available below.

It was the 29th of October when five residents joined the volunteers of Project Healing Waters on a fishing trip to Hampton road River creek. VHN provided the transportation for the residents, to and from the event. It started with a presentation about how everything would work. The Leader went into the water and showed everyone three or four ways to cast with your rod and what particular lure to use on any given day. It depends on the location as to whether they will use flies, blank ants, or other lures he has in the box. All of his lures are handmade. After that, we all separated and went to different spots of the creek. We tried fly fishing. Two of us caught fish. I caught a fish that was 10 inches long. We had to release them because the trip was to “catch and release.” We tried different spots on the creek to see how we could do by ourselves without help. We were wearing “waders” so we were able to go out into the water to select our spots. The whole event took about three hours.

The hardest thing was to stand in one spot, be patient and quiet. You had to cast, let it drift, and bring it back and cast it up stream. I saw fish upstream from where I was standing, but they were not biting my bait.

In the middle of the event, we stopped for a lunch of cold cut sandwiches and donuts provided by the volunteers. We all had a good time and we learned a few new things about fishing, on this trip with Project Healing Waters. The purpose of these trips is to relax the mind and body, and it works. You are only thinking about catching the elusive fish. Thank you volunteers of Project Healing Waters for spending this time with the Veterans of VHN. We are looking forward to the next class and outing.