Reel Partners: BLM and Wyoming Game and Fish Cast a Line for Kemmerer’s Next Generation

The morning air still carried a cool bite when the first young anglers arrived at the Kemmerer Community Fishing Pond on June 13. By 7 a.m., the banks were alive with the sound of reels spinning, lines sailing through the air, and the kind of barely contained excitement that only a kid with a fishing rod can produce. 

This was the annual Kemmerer Kids Fishing Derby, and this year the Bureau of Land Management’s Kemmerer Field Office showed up ready to be part of it. 

The City of Kemmerer hosts the event each year alongside the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) and the BLM Kemmerer Field Office, a partnership that has become a reliable fixture on the Kemmerer community calendar. The event invited young anglers under the age of 18 to spend the morning casting lines, competing for the biggest catch, and discovering what it feels like to reel in something wild. BLM’s team didn’t just show up to stand at the water’s edge. They came with lures, loaner gear, and a bulletin board packed with recreation maps, fish species ID charts, knot tying diagrams, and a hands-on casting station. Informational handouts, fishing tackle giveaways, and DOI-BLM Freedom 250 stickers rounded out the spread. Four BLM employees worked the event, each taking on a different role: fish identification, knot tying, pole rigging, and helping WGFD biologists run the official weigh-ins. All working shoulder to shoulder with partners and families all morning long. 

Alex Gardiner, fisheries biologist for the BLM Kemmerer Field Office, and Dave Merz, wildlife biologist for the BLM Kemmerer Field Office, both remember a boy at the event they called Remington. He showed up early, full of Wyoming cowboy manners and a level of excitement that was genuinely hard to keep up with, but his reel was empty, and he'd already tried twice on his own to fix it. Gardiner and Merz got him sorted, rigging him up with a lure donated by Brandon Teppo, field manager for the BLM Kemmerer Field Office, walked him through a few basics, and pointed him toward the water. Remington came back throughout the morning to deliver updates on every single development. By day's end he'd caught several fish. What nobody expected was that he'd come back to the table at the end of the morning and offer his catfish, one of two caught that day, as a thank you. "You never saw a happier kid in your life," Merz said. 

Gardiner had his own moments to hold onto. There was the kid dressed like he’d been preparing for this day his whole life. He showed up in waders, sunglasses, full fisherman regalia, and full of pure joy. Gardiner said he hadn’t seen anything like it in a long time. And the moment he keeps coming back to most is simpler than either of those moments. It’s the parade of kids making their way to the weigh-in table, chests out, chins up. “It was easy to see the sense of accomplishment in their smiles and posture," Gardiner said, "as they stood in line holding their trophy catch." 

Some of the quieter moments landed just as hard. A boy no older than four walked up to the weigh-in table not looking for a ribbon or a photograph. He wanted his fish back in the water. “He said he didn’t want the fish to die,” Merz recalled. “He wanted to save it and return it back to its home.” So that’s what they did. “Many trout fishermen practice catch and release,” Merz said, reflecting at the memory, “and this little fellow was on his way to becoming one of them.” And there was the boy so wound up about his big catch that he tripped in the grass on the way to the weigh-in table—fish and all. The boy rinsed the fish off in the water cooler, his mom appeared just in time for a photo, and the grin on his face was honestly difficult to tell apart from the size of the fish itself. 

Teppo sees events like this as something bigger than a morning on the water. "This was a great opportunity for BLM and Kemmerer Field Office staff to be directly involved with local youth," he said, "introducing them to just one of many recreation activities available on public lands. The impact doesn't stop with the kids who were there that day. It carries forward into adulthood, into their own families, and on to the next generation after that."

It's a sentiment both Merz and Gardiner share, each arriving at it from their own angle. "It's more than just about fishing," Merz said. "It's about pursuing a life skill that is one of humanity's oldest activities. One that immerses a person in the natural world." He leaned on Thoreau to say the rest: "Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after." Merz thinking further down the road, "In so doing, they may eventually care for and respect the natural world so that one day they may contribute to its conservation and pass on their love of fishing and the outdoors to the next generation." Gardiner keeps it closer to the ground. "Kids are the future stewards of these resources," he said. "It's important they get a chance to connect with the outdoor world in a fun and positive way and take that with them." 

By 11 a.m. the pond had gone quiet. Families packed their rods, collected their fish, and wandered home with coolers, stickers, and stories still warm on their lips. Catching your first fish can open a door to a lifetime. On a cool June morning in Kemmerer, that door swung wide open and a lot of kids walked through it.