At 11 years old, Garrett’s journey into fly fishing started when his grandpa mailed him an old, unused kit of fly tying supplies. 

He dove into learning how to tie flies on his own, filling up a fly box with woolly buggers, hoppers and nymphs. But when it came to actually fly fishing, his mother, Aimee, said it was hard to know where to start. That’s why she signed him up for Minnesota Trout Unlimited’s Foster the Outdoor’s mentorship program.

At the program’s matchup event in May, Garrett was paired with Foster the Outdoors mentor Mike Grengs. Aimee said she remembered meeting Mike three years ago at a kids fishing event in Coon Rapids where Mike was staffing a fly-fishing booth, and that he was helpful and encouraging of her son’s interest in fishing. 

“Then we just got paired up by chance,” she said. 

This is Mike’s second season with Foster the Outdoors, but he’s been teaching on behalf of Twin Cities Trout Unlimited for years. 

The youth mentorship program aims for mentors and mentees to get out fishing together three times over the course of a summer, typically starting out on a lake to practice fly casting before graduating to a trout stream. 

For their first trout stream outing, Mike took Garrett and Aimee fishing in southeast Minnesota’s Driftless Area. Between Mike and Garrett, the two caught upwards of 30 trout. Garrett caught all his fish on the flies he made from his grandpa’s kit. 

“The flies that he ties, they’re really nice,” Mike said, as he, Garrett and Aimee prepared to fish the South Branch of the Root River on their second trip to the Driftless Area. 

Mike’s goal for their third fishing outing was to introduce them to fishing faster moving water and making sure Garrett knows how to read the stream. 

Later that morning, at the next fishing spot on the South Branch of the Root River, Garrett and Aimee walked the stream bank while Mike fished upstream, giving the two space to gain confidence in their skills. 

“What would Mike say? ‘Foam is home,’” Aimee said to Garrett. “Where is there foam?”

Garrett scanned the moving water, looking for the places Mike has taught him to notice. He spotted foam collecting near a boulder in the stream and began casting.

Over the summer, when they weren’t fishing with Mike, Aimee sent him updates and pictures of the fish Garrett caught. It’s important to her that Mike knows they’re gaining autonomy and using the skills he volunteers his time to teach. 

“As a mom, you do a lot of things for your kid you wouldn’t otherwise do,” Aimee said. “That’s what I like about this. It’s an opportunity to have one-on-one time and make memories and spend time together doing something he enjoys.”

The program pairs a mentor and a mentee, but it takes an invested guardian like Aimee, who wades hip deep into the experience, to make it possible.

How to get involved

Foster the Outdoors is always looking for mentors. If this sounds like fun to you, please reach out to the program’s co-coordinators, Kevin Wier at 612-867-5768, Rich Femling at 763-807-5878 or fostertheoutdoors@hotmail.com. The sign up deadline for mentors is the end of March each year.