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440 Middlesex St
#111
Tyngsborough, MA
USA - 01879


Annual Fishing Derby

Lowell Sun Article

This fishing derby's a keeper Lowell Sun Front Page Monday 6-13-05
Rotary gives kids with special needs a rod, reel -- and a day to remember
By PETER WARD, Sun Staff

TYNGSBORO -- David Feehan rolled his wheelchair a few feet from the grassy shoreline of a pond at the Tyngsboro Sportsman's Club stocked with fish. The 13-year-old's father, James Feehan, hooked a worm, cast the line a good 30 yards and handed the rod to his only child. Seconds later, the red bobber skimmed across the water.
Got one!
“Bring it in, David,” his father shouted as the boy reeled in a rainbow trout about 8 inches long.
“That's a keeper,” said his father, a Lowell carpenter.
Only moments before, the family chuckled when the boy's grandfather, Francis Feehan, hauled in a specimen too tiny to be called a fish.

“David called me up five times yesterday -- ‘Don't forget we're going fishing tomorrow,' said the grandfather, a semiretired drywall worker who has gone nearly broke paying David $5 apiece for the many A's the boy got on his report card at the Rogers School. “He lives for this.”
So do others, such as 17-year-old Eric Lindberg of Lowell, a Greater Lowell Technical High School student who suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, and is developmentally delayed. His mother, Donna, was shooting video.

“He loves it when I make a movie,” she said. “He watches it over and over.

The fun happens every June at the “Day of Fishing” derby for special-needs children and their families. Sponsored by the Tyngsboro Sportsman's Club and Tyngsboro-Dunstable Rotary with generous help from Rotary clubs in Lowell, Dracut and Nashua, it has become something the kids look forward to.
Despite yesterday's scorching heat and mugginess, more than 100 people staked out spots around the bucolic pond with no name.
Many participants, such as Feehan, who suffers from spina bifida -- a disorder involving incomplete development of the brain and spinal cord -- are “mainstreamed” and thrive in regular classrooms.

Others attend specialized schools.
“I like fishing,” said Chris Dunn, 13, son of Dennis Dunn of Westford, who attends such a school in Belmont. “It's very relaxing, and also it gives you fish you don't have to pay for.”
On this day, fishing is the great equalizer.
Whether kids are considered special needs or not, anyone with a little patience and luck can hook a trout.
Of course, not everyone's patient.
Jill Thibedeau, a Lowell mother of four, watched as her 10-year-old son, Drake, who he has a learning disability and a mild form of autism, happily fished from a wooden bridge alongside his brother, Jake, 9.
But when a big frog nearby was startled and started splash-hopping along the muddy reeds, Drake abandoned the pole and scampered after the amphibian.
“I was hoping this would teach them some patience,” said his mother.
Drake was attending Lowell's Demonstration School, which plans to merge with the Magnet School and move to the Bartlett. Thibedeau praised the Demonstration School for its philosophy of positive reinforcement and effectiveness.
In September, Drake's sentences comprised just two or three words. So the teachers decided to change their approach and use another reading system called the Wilson Program. In months, he could read a book.
“He read this flier to me,” Thibedeau said, holding the derby poster.
On a hot, sweaty day, the volunteers were mensches.
They used pliers to snip snagged lines, stocked the freezer in the lodge with fish and helped remove the hooks from the fishes' mouths.
“It's kind of nice because we're always raising money for good causes, and we don't always see the end result,” said Jody Gage of the Nashua Rotary.
Clarke Davis, another Nashua Rotarian, surveyed all the fishing going on.
“This,” he said, “is a very satisfying event.”
Peter Ward's e-mail address is pward@lowellsun.com.

Each June, the Tyngsboro-Dunstable Rotary Club, with cooperation from other local area Clubs, and the Tyngsboro Sportsmans club, all hold a major annual event: The Fishing Day for persons with special needs.  Physically challenged children and adults from throughout the New England area are invited to spend a day of fun, food and fishing at the Tyngsboro Sportsmans Club.

A sample of pictures from past year's event can be found below. (click on a small image to go to a bigger image and click your browser's "Back" button to return to this page)