And if the child has taken up the fly rod, he has a priori shaken hands with nature, thus sealing an agreement to both understand and protect her many wonders. For fly-fishing can be conceived in no other way...

Philip Brunquell
Fly-Fishing with Children

Lakes and rivers are important for many reasons. They are beautiful and serene. They are important sources of clean, fresh water. They are home for many unique species of plants and animals. It is very important that we protect this habitat - not only for our enjoyment but for the health of the fish, plants, birds and wildlife that make their homes on our waterways.

Would you like to be a guardian of nature, a steward of the environment? Here's how you can help:

• Be a naturalist. Stewardship mostly involves learning about nature. Reading is a good way to learn about nature, but to learn by doing is even better.
• Be an activist. There is also a lot you can do - and things that you should not do - to protect the environment directly.
• Be a responsible fly-fisher. Practicing good fishing is a way to combine a great hobby with stewardship.

Be a Naturalist

You can become a naturalist - a young scientist of fresh water, of ponds and streams. The more you learn about nature, the more you will like what she has to offer - and the better you will get at protecting her. There is no better way to practice environmental stewardship.

Your can do this in four steps, described in detail below:

Step One

Where do you live?

Step Two

Adopt a body of water.

Step Three

Get some gear.

Step Four

Check the health of your water.

Step One: Where do you live?

You need to know where you live. Which watershed do you live in? (If you need to, remind yourself what a watershed is.) Always think of a watershed as your home. If you live east of Quesnel, the next time someone asks you where you live, tell them, “I live in the Quesnel River watershed.” That’s a large watershed. What about the rain that falls right around your house, your yard? Where does it go?

This is a good way to think, because it reminds you that your home depends on the health of your watershed. If you think of your watershed as your home, you begin to treat it like a home.

Step Two: Adopt Part of Your Watershed

Choose a body of water in your watershed that interests you: a lake, a stream, a pond. It can be big or small - a river or a stream. It doesn't matter, just as long as you can visit fairly often. It might be a place you go to fish or camp. Or it might be right near your house. Do some exploring, and consider several places before you choose.

You are going to develop a relationship with this body of water. You're going to become its personal guardian for as long as you can. When you've chosen a place you like, invent an oath or a contract, something to hang on your wall, or just keep in your heart: a promise to understand and protect that water as well as you can, for as long as you can. If you ever have to leave, try to find someone else to take over and become a guardian in your place.

Step Three: Get Some Gear

Get your parents involved now. Tell them you want to do some scientific experiments on your water, to make sure it is healthy, and you're going to need some cheap gear to do it. This is what you need to get started:

• A two-pound lead sinker used for saltwater fishing, tied to a length of nylon rope marked every foot with an indelible marker. You will use this for measuring the depth of water.
• A stream thermometer on a short line.
• Special coated strips of paper used to test the acidity of water. This paper is called “pH paper.” It changes color when you dip it in water - then you compare it to a simple color chart, which you will also need (it may come with the pH paper).
• A sturdy field notebook to record your findings.

Food for Thought... What other inexpensive tools might help you? Have a look around a hardware store or a tackle shop and see what else you can think of.

Step Four: Check the Health of Your Water

A stream or a lake can be healthy or unhealthy. When its healthy, conditions are just right for all the plants and animals in it and around it. When it's not, some of those species begin to move away and die - but you can't always tell by just looking at it.

Your goal is to become a bit of a detective. Your aim is to know more about your chosen water than other people can tell by just looking. They might look at the water and say, “Looks fine to me.”

But you can tell them, “Actually, it's too warm for this time of year, and the trout are probably all hiding in the lake because of it.” Or whatever.

There are many ways to learn these things. Use these ideas for checking the health of a stream as a starting point:

• How warm is the stream? Use your stream thermometer on a line: lower it into the water in the shade, and let it sit for at least three minutes. Measure and record the temperature at different times of day, and different times of the year.
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Food for Thought... Suppose you were to measure the temperature of your stream every year on May 1 for five years, and it was always about the same temperature. Then, suddenly one year you found it was five degrees warmer! What would you do?

• How deep is the stream? Use your sinker on a marked line: lower the sinker to the bottom, and measure and record the depth by how far the water comes up the marks on the line. Measure and record depths in different parts of the stream - riffles, runs and pools - and at different times. Compare your measurements over the weeks and years. If anything changes, you will know!
• How acidic is the water? This is a chemical measurement that is very important to the health of any body of fresh water. Fish can only live in water that is either neutral or slightly alkaline (the opposite of acid). You can measure the acidity of water with your pH paper. This is getting to be some serious science, now! (If you're not sure how to use the pH paper, ask your parents, teacher or a librarian for help. Once you've got it figured out, measure and record the acidity of your adopted water at different times, and over time.) Acidity of 6.0 or lower usually means trouble for fish. If you watch the acidity of your water, someday you might be the very first person to know that the fish are in danger.

Food for Thought... These ideas are just the beginning. What other measurements could you take of a stream? How about a lake? How would you check on the health of a river?!

Be An Activist

Being an activist doesn't mean that you have to be a fierce Environmentalist - although you might want to be. It just means that you take an active role in using the woods and water responsibly, and in doing what you can to protect the environment directly.

Using the Woods and Water Responsibly

Here are some things that you can do to take care of the habitat when you are camping or fishing:

• Please only camp in designated areas. We must preserve our forests and shorelines.
• When you are camping, please light fires only in fire pits. This helps to protect the surrounding habitat and keeps the ashes in one spot.
• Keep your fires small to save trees and reduce pollution.
• Please keep your pets on a leash when you are enjoying the back country - they can harass the animals and trample wildflowers. Also remember to pick up your pet's droppings.
• Please put all your garbage in garbage cans if they are provided. If not, make sure you pack your garbage out and deposit it responsibly.
• Do not pour anything into lakes and streams that can harm them. Soap, oil, cleaners and other chemicals can seriously harm the environment.
• Get involved! You can work with your school and community to learn more about your area, and perhaps help improve a stream or lake.
• Please do not move fish or other plants and animals from one lake to another. Diseases and harmful creatures can destroy a population of fish in a lake.
• Do not throw any garbage into a lake or a stream. It can kill fish and birds.

See below for more detailed ideas about how to practice responsible fishing.

Protecting the Environment

What if you were the only person who knew - or believed - that a small lake near your home was in danger? What would you do? This is a very real problem - something that has happened to many naturalists around the world.

• When something goes wrong in the environment, it's important to try to figure out where the problem is, and (even more importantly) how to fix it. People will pay more attention to the problem if you know these things, and if you take a constructive and positive approach to solving the problem.
• If you really think there is something wrong with your water, you should get help from the professionals. Talk to your parents, and together you can find a local environmental organization, or a biologist with the government or at the local college or university. They can guide you from there. They will really appreciate your enthusiasm and assistance.
• You also need to tell the world about any problem you discover. Writer letters to your local paper and to your political representatives. Find other people who are interested and get them to help you. Form a club or a society of people.

And remember, there doesn't have to be a problem for you to take an active, direct role in environmental stewardship. You can still talk to the professionals and learn from them, or write letters to the local paper just to tell your community what you have learned about your stream - just to tell them its healthy. You can encourage other people to adopt other streams or lakes. Be creative! Think of ways to get the word out about the things you are learning.

Responsible Fly Fishing

Fishing is a great way to enjoy the wilderness. But if you want the wilderness to stay wild and healthy, it pays to fish respectfully. Fly-fishing is a very responsible sport. Good fly-fishers really make an effort to understand and protect the waters they fish in - they have to! If they don't understand the ecosystem, they have a hard time catching anything.

You can practice good fishing, too. Follow your common sense, and treat the environment with respect, generally. The most important, simplest way that you can be a responsible angler is just this: never catch a fish you don't intend to eat.

Catch and Release

You have probably all heard about "catch and release" - where you enjoy catching a fish but let it go to live for another day! Well, it is important to treat a fish well once you catch it, or it will not live much past the time that you release it. Here are some tips to keep the fish healthy:

• Make sure your hands are wet before you handle the fish. Dry hands remove the protective slime from the fish bodies. This always causes infections to get started.
• Play and release the fish as quickly as possible. Try to keep it in the water during the actual release. Remember a fish out of water cannot breathe! Every second out of water stresses the fish and shortens its chance to survive.
• Use care in handling the fish to make sure you do not hurt its internal organs. They are not used to living with gravity like we are, so cradle the fish gently.
• Use barbless hooks if you can. They are much easier to remove and do a lot less damage to the fish.
• Large tired fish need help to revive them. Make sure the fish is in water, then cradle the fish in one hand and hold its tail in the other. Move the fish back and forth through the water until it can swim off on its own.
• Use a net that is cotton or very fine mesh so that the fish scales and protective slime are not scraped off.

Did You Know... That it takes about 400 years for an aluminum can to decompose. And about one million years for a glass bottle! We do not even know how long it will take for monofilament fishing line to break down - probably several million years.