Summer 2026
We have had an incredible summer! New students and returning students, we have been hitting the water every week and it has been a blast!
With early summer’s wild rainfall, or lack there of, we have been getting creative and fishing close to home. River levels have been so low that we haven’t been able to run our normal stretches. So we have been chasing my local favorite Carp on the fly. The king of the piedmont flats! Typically carp fishing is so hard and so demanding on your cast that I don’t take students to do it. However multiple students have landed their first carp on the fly! A testament to their progression and growth!
In addition to local carp trips we have also added a few middle school students to our program this summer! Local panfish is the perfect trip to hone in the cast, and build the relationships. We can’t wait to see these students growth.
Our first Smallmouth camp took place this summer. We took two high school students up and had an absolute blast. Weather was perfect, and the fishing was fire. It was the “Old Men” chaperones versus the young bucks. Experience won the day and served the young bucks up with some humble pie, netting over 120 fish on the day! We were able to have some great discussions on the trip. Each day we kicked off with a question of the day. We thought about it all day and discussed each night. A moment that sticks out was based around the question “ What is a lie that you have believed about yourself”. Answers were, “I am not enough. I am not as good as other guys. I am alone”. The “Old Men” were able to encourage the young bucks. These lies will haunt us for years, and if given room to take root will make us slaves. We then asked what would replacing them with a truth look like? We landed on these verses in Galatians, “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.” This changes everything. Silences the lies and confirms identity. If I am his son, then I am enough. Not through my own doing but through his doing. The last morning, on the way to a remote boat ramp, we passed under a bridge with a mural painted that read “ You Are Enough”. This is the message that we continue to try and help land. You are not alone, available to all is adoption, sonship and a hope and a future secured through faith and trust.
As always, thank you for your support and making it possible for these trips to happen!
