Five years ago today.

I had a memory on facebook from my 1st kayak outing. I fished with Anthony and the Portland HOW crew at the Sturgeon roundup on the Gilbert River from 5 years ago today.

That day literally changed my life! We own 3 kayaks now, and I have used mine in a lot of different locations to catch a wide variety of fish. Hoping to expand my variety this year!

I hope to add Lake Trout, Chinook Salmon, and hopefully a Halibut, but I won't feel bad if that one doesn't happen.

Here is a couple pictures from that day!

Anthony, I hope you see this! Thank you for changing my life! I have loved the ride so far, and really look forward to many more adventures and tasty fish!

I helped out on that event - it was great weather, and we hooked up on a lot of fish. It was a great time!

Thanks for sharing this memory. I think a lot of us who help with HOW events often wonder what kind of impact we are having. Helping give a person some joy for even a couple of hours is very worthwhile, but seeing that we show some people a pathway to much more happiness is really uplifting. What a great start to the week.

Thanks for sharing this Dan. We all miss having events on that beautiful stretch of water (and having events in general right now).

We are very lucky to have had so many talented and dedicated volunteers over the years that work really hard to try and make every event special in one way or another to everyone that participates.

Getting participants to develop new skills, purchase their own gear, then come back out and volunteer is the ultimate goal of the program because you start to heal when you start to help others. While we are maintaining the base goal of providing a carefree day of relaxation to those who have served.

Kayak fishing won't change the whole world, but it has changed more lives than you can imagine. There's only one way to find out if it will change yours.

Thanks Dan for being a great ambassador for HOW.