Among the joggers and yoga classes enjoying a hot sunny day at Delaware Park, a group of fly fishers gathered around Hoyt Lake. Some of them used wheelchairs and other mobility devices, others didn’t, but they all cast their rods into the water, hoping for a catch.
The 30 or 40 people at the lake that day were participating in an accessible fly fishing clinic, the first product of a collaboration between WNY Trout Unlimited, a fly fishing and conservation organization, and Outside the Box Associates, a disability advocacy group that organizes accessible outdoor events, among other things.
The event, which was free and open to anyone, was meant to bring disabled and non-disabled people together around the same activity, according to Outside the Box Associates co-founder Mike Rogers.
“A lot of times we’re siloed. There’ll be events that will be put on by great organizations that deal with people with disabilities, but the focus is support and things of that nature. They sometimes really don’t include the outside world, if you want to call it that,” Rogers said. “We want things to be organic. If you like something, just come hang out with people with disabilities.”
Organizers chose to hold the event at Hoyt Lake because of its central location and the flat ground surrounding it. The groups provided one-on-one instruction and equipment, including adaptive fishing rods that can be strapped to someone’s forearm.
Rogers hadn’t gone fishing since he was a kid. He hadn’t caught any fish two hours into the event, but he said he was just happy to be doing something that many non-disabled people told him was simply out of reach.
“A lot of times when I was younger, people would just say, ‘things aren’t accessible, that’s the way it is,’” Rogers said. “And we would just accept that, but we don’t need to do that. We can work together with the able-bodied community in the world and say, ‘How can we make this happen?’”
In separate interviews, Rogers and WNY Trout Unlimited Education and Outreach Chair Jim Jowsey both said that they’d like to plan similar events together in the future.