For veterans, fly-tying casts a line to better days

It doesn’t seem to matter to Veader-McHale that she’s in the second-floor dining room of the VA Medical Center in Bedford rather than on the banks of a trout stream. She’s happy to be recounting tales of her days as a Coast Guard recruiter in Seattle for Rosser, who keeps asking for more details about her military service.

All around the room, similar conversations are taking place — and so is the fly-tying. This is the hospital’s monthly meeting of Project Healing Waters, a national organization that recruits fishing enthusiasts to volunteer to work with disabled veterans on everything from the art of fly-tying to going out to fish.

“From the perspective of recreational therapy, fly-tying has so much value on so many levels,’’ said Leah Sullivan, a recreational therapist at the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital, as the facility is also known, who helped launch the local chapter with volunteer Steve Kirk. “First of all, it’s a great activity for our veterans, because it builds their self-esteem to work on something that results in a finished product that they can show visitors and family members.’’

To boost their sense of accomplishment, Sullivan gives the patients shallow wooden boxes with glass lids to display their work once they’ve completed their first four flies.

“On another level, due to their medical conditions, these men and women find all kinds of daily tasks difficult, simple things they never used to have problems with,’’ she said. “To be able to tie a fly, that’s an intricate and detailed skill. So it does a lot for building their motor skills. And finally, on the social level, some of the volunteers from the fishing group have established very close relationships with the veterans. Now, these volunteers show up on non-fly-tying group days to play chess or have coffee with our patients.’’

For Kirk, who started the chapter in March 2009 with help from Project Healing Waters regional coordinator Marcus Cohn, it’s an ideal way to combine his commitment to volunteering and his wish to honor his late father-in-law, a World War II soldier, by working with veterans.

He approached a coordinator at the hospital shortly after his father-in-law’s death to find out how he might help. First he assisted with serving holiday meals and other standard duties.

“Then one day I was brainstorming with Leah about what else I could contribute as a volunteer. One thing I’ve done for various audiences in the past is slide shows on some of the fishing excursions I’ve gone on.’’

A computer contractor by profession, Kirk is an avid fisherman and captains a charter boat in his spare time on Cape Cod. “She thought that might be interesting, so last spring I offered a slide show at the VA hospital and it got a really good turnout. In the conversations afterwards, I realized how many of the patients had great memories of fishing from their earlier years.’’

Kirk said he is delighted with the response, both from residents at the hospital and from other volunteers. Not only have fishermen shown up by the dozen to help out, some have forged relationships with elderly veterans that go beyond fly-tying.

“We spend time with them, swap stories, talk about fishing we’ve done. We talk a little bit about their time at war, but not much. Mostly we have fun,’’ said Bill Mahoney, a volunteer from Burlington and a military veteran.

Kirk’s only disappointment is that he would love to take the veterans on a fishing excursion, but they don’t have the physical abilities to safely join him on his boat.

Still, he and his fellow volunteers have found ways to connect the fly-tying and the sport of fishing. One evening they went to the VA hospital’s gym and did some casting, and they hope to be able to organize a short trip to a local fishing pond this spring.

If the chapter attracts younger disabled veterans as participants, Kirk says, the possibilities would be much broader. Project Healing Waters offers sponsorships for some yearly fishing excursions, and Kirk is eager to get the word out to vets who could manage the activity.

For the group that meets monthly in Bedford, no one seems to care much that they are unlikely to be putting on waders and stepping out into the current. Though volunteers and participants alike stay intent on the work at hand, conversation sometimes veers in other directions as well.

Bill Mahoney jokes with an elderly veteran in a wheelchair about the fun of being a grandfather, and some of the other men tease one of their peers about the fact that he is a Bronx native who shares a first and last name with a former Red Sox hero.

“Yes, we tie flies, but we also provide them with a break,’’ said Billerica resident Bob Hamilton.

“We’re here for an hour and a half a month to help them do something that makes them forget about everything else they have to deal with.’’

Project Healing Waters welcomes inquiries both from volunteers and disabled veterans. For more information, go to www.projecthealingwaters.org.