Wednesday morning July 17^th, my good friend Steve Schalla and I hit the trailhead to backpack into the Golden Trout Wilderness for four days as guest instructors to teach OBA youths how to fly fish. This was my 3^rdyear volunteering at Golden Trout Camp, I look forward to the trip each and every year I’m invited to go.
 
After a nice leisurely hike up to the camp, we managed to arrive ahead of the kids and got ourselves setup in our tent cabin, which was our home for the next three nights. After settling in we spent some time checking out the environment and the nearby fishing possibilities. About an hour later the youths and OBA instructors arrived in camp, it looked like we had a great group to work with, very enthusiastic and ready to experience the outdoors!
 
The next three nights were familiar, after a great dinner cooked by Thatcher School Alumni; we had the nightly campfire circle, then off to sleep.

 
The next two days we had the opportunity to give the youths a crash course in fly-fishing. After a brief casting lesson to get them proficient enough to fish, we headed out for the meadow below camp for some on the water instruction. Half the kids used traditional fly-fishing equipment and the other half, Tenkara rods. The second day the two groups switched equipment so everyone had a chance to fish both methods.

The kids all caught and released beautiful specimens of Golden Trout, for most, the first fish they had ever caught. A lot of smiling faces made it all worthwhile!

After breakfast on day four, the kids headed up into higher country for five days of wilderness backpacking, Steve and I headed back to civilization, looking forward to next years adventure.