Fly-fishing retreat forges ties among men with cancer

ALTAMONT — A world champion arm wrestler, a police officer, and a burly Vietnam veteran are just a few of the men gathered in a circle to do as a group what they struggle to do alone — battle cancer.

It's not that they can't do it. In fact, for most of them, suffering in silence is what they do best.

But in this place, in this circle of men who know both the burden and the benefits of cancer, they are taking the fight for their lives to a place that has always brought them joy — a fishing pond.

Most men have a fishing story.

It may be more fantasy than reality. It may be more fiction than fact.

Regardless, it is a tale that belongs to them, and in a way, to the people with whom they share it. And on this weekend in late-May, these 17 men, most of whom were strangers when they arrived at Falcon's Ledge near Altamont, will become a part of each other's fishing stories. Which in a way, in a very intimate and unique way, makes them part of each other's life stories.

The men are participants in a program called Reel Recovery, which has a website at www.reelrecovery.org.

The Massachusetts-based group is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping men find support and healing through fly-fishing retreats.

It began with the desire of one man suffering from brain cancer, Stewart Brown, who said the only time he felt at peace was in the water. He, his son and two of his best friends, Jim Cloud and Coy Theobalt, invited several other cancer patients to the very first Reel Recovery outing. Brown eventually lost his fight with cancer, but not before he helped secure funding from cyclist Lance Armstrong's foundation to get the program started. This summer, the number of men who have participated in Reel Recovery retreats will reach 1,000.

The program doesn't just offer men the chance to fly fish in a beautiful place. They receive instruction, the help of an expert volunteer angler — or more technically, a fishing buddy — and then they meet men who understand, in a way no one else can, just how cancer can destroy so much of the life they once lived while teaching them what they might not want to miss.

"Fishing here is such a healing process," said Tim Nelson, who has had three kinds of cancer and nine death sentences. "You know how you feel after a shower — that's how I feel. I feel clean and, in a way, more pure."

He caught three fish his first day.

"It was extraordinary," he said. "I didn't anticipate what happened here these last two days at all."

Day 1: Coming together