2007 was the first year of the Project Healing Waters 2 Fly Tournament. This coming Sunday will mark the second annual 2 Fly Tournament at Rose River Farm just outside of Culpeper, VA.
Last years event was amazing to say the least. The tournament went incredibly smooth regardless of it being the first year of the event. The weather was amazing. But most importantly it was simply a fun day of fishing with the veterans and volunteers of Project Healing Waters.
Before the event last year, I talked to my daughter who was 6 at the time. I explained to her about how some of the soldiers would be in wheel chairs, some would have prosthetics and many would have noticeable scares and injuries. She seemed to understand and had an incredible amount of sympathy for them.
There was one thing about last year the truly impressed me. There was a vet, forgive me but I don’t remember his name, but he had lost both legs and was in a wheel chair. Sarah was very curious and empathetic about this guy and she whispered in my ear something to the effect that she was so sorry about his injury and that she was going to pray for him. Trying to instill independence in her, when she asked how his prosthetic legs attached to him, I told her to go ask him. So she did.
For about 45 minutes this guy showed Sarah all there was to know about the amazing bionic legs that he was fitted with. To say the least, she was amazed and impressed not only with the courage that this soldier had, but that he cared enough to show her the person he was. That really hit home with me.
The soldier I was paired up with last year, Russel Martin was a pretty good angler. He was mobile and was able to handle the rod and reel pretty well even with slight limitations he had due to his injury. In the morning when we met, Russel basically said he could take care of the fishing, and would only need help, landing fish. It was at that time that we both agreed to set out to try and win the tournament last year. Sarah seemed to be ultra confident in her Dad’s fishing abilities but I had doubts. The morning session went pretty well. We caught a bunch of fish and measured a few. I did manage to break off a #4 woolly bugger though to a pretty large rainbow on the hook set. I was impressed that he busted through 2x tippet. Moments after that, the trout jumped out of the river trying to lose the fly it had in the corner of its mouth. I attempted to search the river bottom for about 10 minutes after the morning session to no avail. We were down to only 3 flies for the afternoon session.
You see, with the 2 Fly Tournament, each angler gets to flies. If you lose them, you are done. The veterans have special powers and always seem to have a fly on hand regardless. They are kind of like super heroes and magically have flies tied on their lines if a team manages to lose all four. But the pressure was on for the afternoon session and we were on stage located at the main pool behind the pavilion. It would be an understatement to say the afternoon was productive. We landed 15+ fish and my partner and I put on a pretty good show. Will I tell you the fly that did the trick? Sure. It was a #12 Lightning Bug. But I won’t tell you what we did or how we fished it. That’s a secret and I plan on using the same fly and tactic this year. My fingers are crossed as I type.
It’s not about winning this tournament though. It’s about spending time with some people who have done so many amazing things. There is one thing that ran through my head last year and will run through my head in the coming 2 Fly Tournaments and that is about the soldiers that didn’t make it home. Regardless of what religion you are, or what beliefs you have, they won’t be able to fish at the 2 Fly but they will be in my thoughts and my heart.
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