Youth Education
Rocky Mountain Flycaster’s youth programs provide fly fishing experiences and STEM education to help young people become more aware of and connect with the environment through fly fishing and conservation of cold water streams, lakes, and riparian areas.
Each youth program described below is overseen by a chapter coordinator who prepares materials, supports any volunteers’ training and schedules assignments.
Youth Fly Fishing Day Camp
Rocky Mountain Flycasters’ Youth Fly Fishing Day Camp is an active week of education, participation, adventure, and good fun. Campers will learn fly fishing along with aquatic entomology, river ecology, trout anatomy and behavior. Fly fishing topics presented will include fishing gear, knots, fly tying, fishing regulations, wading safety, casting, and line control.
Children’s Water Fest
Local Water Festivals promote hands-on learning about water issues for students. Our interactive game, “Who Eats Who At The Stream”, recreates the food chain in the aquatic ecosystem. This game enables us to get our crucial message to elementary aged youth about how important cold, clean water is for our watershed.
Trout in the Classroom
Trout in the Classroom (TIC) is an conservation oriented, environmental education program that offers students a chance to raise trout in a classroom setting and then release them into a nearby stream or river. Caring for the fish fosters a conservation ethic in the students, and the act of walking to a stream bank and directly releasing the fingerlings into the water makes a concrete connection between caring for the fish and caring for the water
Fly Fishing is fun, Everything about it is fun. Doing it, talking about it, teaching it, learning it, watching it - it’s all a good time! The Trout Unlimited Costa 5 Rivers Program is a national network of affiliated college fly fishing clubs with a purpose of spreading that fun on campuses nationwide. It also helps to spread the values and community of Trout Unlimited.
Each year on Colorado Free Fishing Weekend, the US Forest Service sponsors a Free Kids' Fishing Day Event on Saturday at West Lake in Red Feather for children 15 and under. The USFS provides beginner level spinning rod/reel equipment and some fly fishing gear. Rocky Mountain Flycasters typically provides volunteers who circulate the shoreline assisting kids with casting, line un-tangling, baiting, landing fish, explaining about fish handling and answering all the typical beginner questions of the kids and parents.
STREAM Girls/Explorers
STREAM Girls is an outdoor watershed experience that employs STEM-education (science, technology, engineering, math) plus recreation and arts to explore a local stream. By visiting a local stream and having the opportunity to observe it as scientists, anglers, and artists, Girl Scouts in the 4th through 8th grade (juniors and cadettes) will get the complete picture of what their stream could mean to them.
STREAM Explorers is a family oriented introductory program best suited for upper elementary and middle school students. Taking the curriculum of an introduction to fly fishing this program utilizes inquiry-based education practices to better engage youth as active learners and critical thinkers while learning recreational fishing and river stewardship.