Now in its 11th year, the Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing National Fly Rod Building Competition is focused on expanding the therapeutic experience for PHWFF disabled veteran participants by giving them the experience of building their own fly rods to further their physical and mental rehabilitation through the sport of fly fishing. It also has a fun competition component which gives participants the chance to win prizes for their rod building abilities.
The Rod Building Program and Competition wouldn’t be possible without all those volunteers who contribute their time, talents, and expertise to provide a meaningful and therapeutic experience for our Nation’s disabled veterans and the tremendous support of the Bob Woodruff Foundation and an NFL-BWF partnership to provide a “Healthy Lifestyles and Creating Community.”
Over the past months, PHWFF and Pacific Bay International have joined forces to heighten the positive benefits disabled veterans gain from this great activity. Through this exciting new partnership, standard fly rod blanks and component kits purchased from PacBay are being used in the 2019 PHWFF competition. They are also offering training opportunities focused on strengthening our development of fly rod instructors inside of the PHWFF volunteer ranks. The partnership with PacBay will continue building and expanding this ever popular annual program.
A record-setting number of PHWFF disabled veteran participants and programs will take part in the Rod Building Program and Competition. This year 1125 disabled veteran participants from 135 PHWFF Programs spread across all of our 20 geographic regions are participating! That is the largest number ever to be enrolled in this annual program and we’re looking forward to bringing this core-programmatic activity to even more participants in 2020. If history is any measure, we are in for something incredibly special this year! We wish them all good luck and happy building and we eagerly look forward to seeing the submissions!