Spring is a time of growth, not only in the natural world as tightly wrapped buds unfurl and create the green canopy and carpet around us, expanding their branches and their bound but also in the opportunities provided to expand our reach to others in the outdoors. With the warming days, generally temperate conditions, and the strong bites of fish that cycle through the season leading us into summer, there are nearly uncountable combinations of waters to fish, species to angle for, and methods to use that teach so much about the world around us to young sportspeople. Along that latter path, of taking someone else fishing, we find growth in ourselves a chance to look at things from a new perspective yet again, and an opportunity to share our legacy outdoors.

I’ve said and written it countless times. It isn’t hard. It’s as simple as taking a young person fishing, particularly one who may not have had the opportunity to explore a stream or lake. A tub of crawlers and a good spot on shore that you know provides easy access to fast biting fish like bluegills, or stocked rainbow trout, or even — dare I say it — bullheads, has been the starting point for so many in the outdoors that blossoms into something more down the road.

While I fished for much of my childhood, I was never terribly serious about it. Perch and sunnies from the dock at our family cabin occupied parts of summer days spent staying with grandma and grandpa, interspersed with adventures joining other kids from up and down the shoreline, exploring the nearby creek, swamps, woods, and the starry sky at night around the campfire. While it wasn’t the only memory from those formative years, angling became the bedrock on which all my other future adventures in the outdoors would sprout, thanks to a family friend of my grandparents who would take me out in his little wooden boat when I was three, before he died and let his lessons take root as I continued on my own. And they did.

And as those roots grew, I branched out into other fish, and other ways to fish for all of them on rivers, lakes, impoundments, ponds and just about anywhere there was water. A friend of mine once remarked that I’d try to catch a bass in a bathtub if the opportunity was there. With those forays and lessons learned, I passed what I knew on through mentoring programs, fly tying courses, and related outdoors activities to youth, community members, instructors and others. It wasn’t hard either.

What I’ve found out about most anglers is they love to talk in generalities, and hold back on specifics, and that mindset is really all that’s necessary to pass on the tradition, and create the new anglers which will not only keep it going, but also build the next generation of conservationists and advocates for wild places and the waters and fish within them. This spring once again provides that opportunity to undertake a new effort with a new individual or group and share the things that will help get them started, make them better anglers and ultimately the next vanguard on watch protecting and in turn growing the future of fishing … in our outdoors.