There is an early 1990s photo of Jess Westbrook and his father flyfishing on Roaring River in Missouri. Jess is six years old, catching his first trout. He remembers being proud of his hair that day, styled in what he calls “the best mullet of my life.” Jess’s father holds a cigarette whose smoke has recently risen and dissipated above the cold, clear water. Oh, the nineties!
Jess, a lifelong resident of Benton, Arkansas, calls his childhood idyllic. He, his parents, and his younger sister, Jordan, made up their traditional middle-class family. Jess played baseball in high school and at Ouachita Baptist University, and he was a fishing guide in Alaska during the summers. Jess assumed his life was typical. It wasn’t, of course, and later Jess learned that some of his classmates had been in foster care, which is not as unusual as you might think.
Statistics show that right now in the U.S., there are approximately 390,000 kids in foster care, a result of their home life becoming untenable. The average age is eight years old. About 25,000 foster kids a year turn eighteen, aging out of the system because they are technically adults. Unless they are lucky enough to find further help, they are on their own.
But back to Jess. He married his college sweetheart, Laura, and in 2014, they had a baby boy (and later welcomed two daughters). They were smitten. They were also getting up at all hours of the night, living on fumes. Well, fumes and coffee.
This convergence of circumstances hit Jess hard, and he started having panic attacks, a condition that can come on suddenly, filling you with fear and dread. A shortened list of the physical symptoms can include a rapid heartbeat, profuse sweating, chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness, numbness, and nausea. Some people describe it as feeling as if they’re having a heart attack.
“Our son Kase was seven days old, and my cousin was coming by to take newborn photos,” Jess says. “I was in the shower, and I thought I felt a lump in my neck, and I freaked out. Total panic attack. None of it was real, but my brain was telling me it was real. From then on, I had crazy anxiety over my health. What’s going to happen to my family if something happens to me?”
For six months, Jess struggled with severe anxiety, losing thirty pounds and missing days of work. “I tried exercise. It didn’t work.” But flyfishing did. On the water, Jess’s mind calmed. On the days leading up to flyfishing, he’d focus on getting ready and tying flies. “Every time I’d go flyfishing, I came back mentally and physically refreshed. It’s being outside. It’s being in nature. It’s breathing the fresh air, hearing the water.
“In bob fishing, for example, you cast your line and wait. You have lots of time to think. With flyfishing, you’re casting, you’re watching, your mind is occupied, and your day-to-day life falls away.”
One Sunday, a representative from The CALL spoke to the congregation at Benton’s Midtowne Church. The CALL is an organization that works to recruit, train, and support Christian foster parents. The Westbrooks were listening intently, and while they weren’t in a position to become foster parents, Jess wondered if he was in a unique situation to help. Flyfishing had gotten him through hard times; maybe it could do the same for the kids in foster care.
In 2015, he and Laura started the nonprofit, the Mayfly Project. Their first participant was Manuel. Jess still carries the boy’s photo on his phone.
“We took him to my aunt’s private pond to flyfish. We caught a bunch of bream. It was such an amazing moment to see how this kid took to it.”
Flyfishing. On a pond. To catch bream. Not what you’d typically picture. No trout, no cold water. There was a reason for that. He wanted to show Manuel that the sport could be practiced on any waterway, especially those close to where the boy lived.
That first fishing trip led to the program as it is today. More than 1,600 foster girls and boys have been through the Mayfly Project, which matches a child, ages eight to eighteen, with an adult mentor. There are five fishing lessons, and at the end of the program, the child is given a kit containing their very own fly rod, which can be broken down to fit in its case.
While they practice catching warm water fish in ponds and lakes close to their group or foster home, the kids also fish for trout in places like Dry Run Creek and Spring River. Some of the kids have caught trout as long as twenty-five inches.
There are 2,700 mentors in Arkansas, thirty-three other states, and two projects in the United Kingdom. A big reason for its success, Jess says, is the commitment of the Mayfly mentors. “Fly fishers are caring people. They care about the environment, so they’re a group of really passionate people. They’re teamed up with the most vulnerable people, kids without parents. Our mentors are doing amazing things in their communities.”
Surprisingly, experience isn’t a key factor. “Some of our best mentors are brand-new fly fishers. It’s not about fishing knowledge. We’re not serving as counselors; we’re not there to speak great words of wisdom. We’re there to meet them where they are, with no agenda. If they want to catch frogs, we catch frogs.
“One of my favorite stories is about one of our mentors, Jay. He was fishing with a teen, and he said, ‘Man, you’re super cool.’ The kid mumbled, ‘The kids at school don’t think so.’ Jay said, ‘I can tell you for a fact those kids are wrong.’
“We have bigger stories of kids going on to be adopted, or continuing to flyfish, but what happened with Jay and this kid matters. At that moment, as a young teenager, the view of yourself is really important, and having your mentor assure you that you’re a great kid, that stays with you. It’s those little moments that are so big.”
Sometimes the kids share insights into their lives before foster care, telling their harrowing stories matter-of-factly. It’s their life, after all, and just as Jess assumed his upbringing was typical, they likely do as well.
In the water, there are lessons about power and control. For a few seconds, the kids hold a wiggling life in their hands. Then they open their hands and release the fish into the water. It’s a symbolic act, one that gives the child absolute authority over one of God’s creations. The fish is caught, helpless, and they offer it a second chance at life.
Jess says it’s not unusual to see tears from the kids and the mentors—a sacred moment, watching tender mercy unfold.
Jeremiah 17:8 KJV says, “For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.”
The mentors metaphorically show these uprooted kids the steadfast tree by the waters. They point out the tree’s sturdy limbs and lush green leaves. Paying special note to the deep roots that anchor it against the raging storms.
All this good has come from six excruciating months in Jess’s life, when fear came to reign, and he discovered the only remedy was to plant himself by the waters. It could have stopped there, with one man finding his way out of dread. But instead, Jess and Laura shared what they’d learned with kids facing heartbreak at such a tender age.
“The Mayfly Project has nothing to do with flyfishing, and everything to do with flyfishing,” Jess says. He’s right, of course. How can giving a fly rod to a child help? How can one gift, that no one can take away, change a child who’s already lost so much?
It’s a riddle, a conundrum, a question with infinite answers. But really, it comes down to this. The whoosh of the fly rod in these kids’ hands might as well be a gentle voice saying, “Here you are, a beautiful part of this natural world, and you are worth everything.”
To learn more about the Mayfly Project, including how to volunteer, visit themayflyproject.com.
