A recent essay noted that “movies have the potential to inspire social change by shedding light on important issues.”
When Norman Maclean’s 1976 novella “A River Runs Through It” became a 1992 movie hit, Americans learned that, for some, “there is no clear line between religion and fly fishing.”
Today, thanks to the Netflix release of a 2022 movie based on Stephen Camelio’s screenplay, “Mending the Line,” America is learning that fly fishing can play an important role in the physical and emotional healing of disabled veterans – true social change.
Upon its streaming release last month, “Mending the Line” was Netflix’ most watched movie. It has also become a major recruiting tool for Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing Inc. (PHW), which helps disabled veterans cope with physical and emotional damage and builds camaraderie many had lost when they left the military.
Retired Navy Captain Ed Nicholson had no idea that the idea he birthed while recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 2005 would grow to serve 65,000 veterans just since 2012, including women vets who have just formed a PHW offshoot called Women on the Fly.
Nicholson, visibly moved by seeing “so many young people with devastating injuries, people in their twenties with missing limbs, deep psychological problems, and other terrible wounds,” won permission to let recovering veterans join him in fly casting on a hospital laws “perfect for a bit of fly fishing.”
That led to Nicholson taking patients on day trips to nearby lakes and streams. “It just sort of snowballed.” He incorporated PHW in 2007, and in eight short years six paid staff and over 2,500 volunteers were serving up to 6,000 disabled veterans.
Meanwhile, former Marine Steve Ramirez, unable to land a job in the fly-fishing paradise of Montana, had found relief for his PTSD in fly fishing in spring-fed streams and lakes in the Texas Hill Country. To share his joy, he penned Casting Forward and then Casting Onward, sharing stories of his fishing adventures.
Fly fishing, Ramirez mused, “forces you to be in the moment and stop thinking so your brain can have a break.” But Casting Onward “is about more than fish; it’s about people. It’s about how we find our tribe and cherish them every day.”
Ramirez, already tied in with Project Healing Waters, had quite a surprise when his books were prominently featured in “Mending the Line.” Camelio, tipped off to Ramirez by Joshua Caldwell, the movie’s director, says, “Where I had made up a story about the horrors of PTSD and the healing power of nature, Ramirez had lived it.”
Movie reviewer Sheila O’Malley praised “Mending the Line” as “the first film to explicitly address this new and innovative treatment, showing it as a potential therapy for those who suffer in silence.”
Thanks to supporters like Sight Line Provisions CEO Edgar Diaz, who hosted an early screening of the film (before Netflix), and a diverse group of sponsors (from Trout Unlimited to the Nature Conservancy), PHW now has nearly 200 highly successful programs in 48 states and works with Department of Defense hospitals, warrior transition units, and Veterans Affairs medical centers and clinics to recruit new members and volunteers.
PHW has a major focus on amputees, many of whom learned to tie flies with one arm. Fly tying and rod building help disabled vets recover motor skills and the camaraderie and the fishing help with PTSD, anxiety, and depression – all vital to reducing the veteran suicide rate.
Healing veterans and healing habitats go together, says A. J. Gottschalk, PHW’s creative director. Volunteers combine great fishing with stream rehabilitation, mangrove removal, or trash pickup – all needed to preserve the vitality of fly-fishing streams.
Air Force veteran Kiley Poole partnered with PHW Board of Trustees member Kendyl Hanks to launch Women on the Fly. Poole and Coast Guard veteran Sue Kerver say female veterans need safe spaces to cope with issues, such as military sexual trauma, exposure to toxins, physical health, and chronic pain, difficult for women to address in mixed company.
Female-only outings at PHW-friendly Freedom Ranch for Heroes in Montana or Oak Heart Lodge in Michigan attract female veterans uncomfortable in otherwise all-male fly-fishing expeditions. Some come to these events just to be there with their fellow female veterans.
Poole says a fishing trip to Freedom Ranch with eight other female veterans “revitalized my soul. I had shut off all things military,” then on one rainy day, “we just tied flies and talked about our families.”
Key pillars of Women on the Fly include representation, recognition, retention, recruiting, and a special focus on veterans in rural areas, for whom travel to any PHW outing can be a barrier. Travel costs are a major obstacle for partners eager to host all-female PHW fly-fishing outings, but Kerver says that there is also a need to properly outfit women veterans with waders and other gear that many cannot afford.
Today, PHW has fewer than a thousand women members, and some programs remain all male. That is something Kerver and Poole hope to change, and a major reason they kept Women on the Fly within the PHW framework. To augment their outreach, the women are sponsoring virtual fly-tying events that build bonds without added costs.
Building on the Netflix exposure, Project Healing Waters is finding other ways to expand its outreach. One is a sweepstakes where anyone can get a chance to win a 2024 Toyota Tundra truck, a Boulder Boat Works drift boat with a boat trailer and three oars, or any of 40 lesser prizes. While donations are not required, they are encouraged.
Fly fishing not only helps disabled veterans and volunteers get away from their daily stresses, the sport also increases their dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and concentration.
But most of all, the camaraderie experienced by these veterans helps them regain purpose in lives damaged by war and conflict in ways that mere physical therapy cannot penetrate.
Simply put, fly fishing restores their hope.
Duggan Flanakin is a senior policy analyst at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow who writes on a wide variety of public policy issues.
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