Check Out Fly Fisherman Magazine

[Leonard]

I got my new issue yesterday..

I started reading through and came across the article.

I was a good read... Check it out!!!!

Leonard

[Project Healing Waters]

We'll get this article in a PDF file pretty soon, but I haven't seen it yet. Thanks for calling attention to it, Leonard. Our annual 2-fly tournament at Rose River Farm in Virginia in May will be an episode of next season's Fly Rod Chronicles on Sportsman's Channel, too. We have quite a few press articles and tv clips from the past year or so that we distribute to board members, regional coordinators, and local program leaders for their PR and informational use. In the past few months we've been covered in most of the major fly fishing magazines. Last Fall we were on CNN and FoxNews. Last Spring we were all over NPR for about a week and in the Washington Post.

Thursday evening through Sunday evening we'll be down in the Mountain Home area for the Sow Bug Roundup. I'll have 3 soldiers tying flies there on Friday and Saturday afternoons. If anybody wants to take them fishing on Sunday or a half day either Friday or Saturday morning let me know. High water...need boats.

I need to plan our April and May fishing trips right away. Missouri Trout Fishermen's Association of Springfield and Roubidoux Fly Fishers Association co-sponsor the PHWFF program at Fort Leonard Wood. The TU and FFF chapters from Fayetteville co-sponsor the program at the VA hospital there. Delta TU sponsors our program in Memphis, TN. And Capital City Fly Fishers sponsors the program at the VA hospital in Columbia, MO. Those are all of the programs currently up and running in MO/AR. AFF is working on a program for Little Rock. Ozark Fly Fishers is working on a program for St. Louis. And Heart of America Fly Fishers is developing a program with the military hospital at Fort Leavenworth, KS.

If you are interested in getting involved in PHWFF in your area, check that list above and get in touch with someone from the appropriate club. Also, donations of gear, trips, money, etc. are always welcome. You can donate them to any one of these clubs in in the name of Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc. if you want it used in that specific area. If you want it to where the most need is in the Southern Region, you can donate it to PHWFF Southern Region by contacting me directly. The region consists of: TX, LA, MS, AR, TN, MO, KS, OK. If you want a donation to go to the national organization for allocation by the board of directors to where they feel it is needed most, you can log on to www.projecthealingwaters.org and click on the donation button for instructions.

[Project Healing Waters]

I finally read the article in Fly Fisherman. It's a very accurate and insightful view of PHWFF. The setting is our annual 2-fly tournament fundraising event in Virginia...last year's to be precise. But it actually tells the whole story of PHWFF in a nutshell. The author was wounded in Vietnam and has continuously struggled with his own injury throughout the intervening decades. So he possesses a keen insight into what these young men and women are going through.

This coming May, SGT Dan Grace of Gassville, AR, and I will be traveling to Virginia to fish as a 2-man sponsored team in the benefit tournament. At that same time, we have another wounded warrior, SSG Ryan Hamme, going on a week-long float fishing trip down the Smith River in Montana. Later that same month after we all return, Phil is hosting the PHW group from Fort Leonard Wood at Lilley's Landing for a day of fishing and fun on Taneycomo.

April will have us down at Taylormade River Treks on the North Fork of the White, where I am writing this post from now. We've been staying here for the Sowbug and doing some fishing. We're going to float the river today with Shawn Taylor.

I have with me two soldiers from Fort Leonard Wood: SGT Jose Pacheco, who lost his knee to an IED explosion in Iraq, and SSG Ryan Hamme, another combat engineer NCO from FLW who suffered a broken back.