Michael Hedgpeth emerges from the shed with a long-handled butterfly net in hand. He breezes past the small wooden signs, fish-shaped and adorned with humorous sayings. He moves past the rows of fishing rods, each one rigged with cherry-red bobbers and little bronze hooks.
He’s heading toward the south side of the pond. Michael is on a mission.
It’s not long before he spots the morning’s first offender. He zeroes in on something several yards ahead. Michael bends over and draws a plastic wrapper out of the grass. He’s somewhat delicate about it, considering it’s just a piece of trash. He deposits it into his butterfly net and carries on.
A quiet chorus of children laughing and adults talking echoes across the pond behind Michael. The soft, warm scent of ponderosa pine lingers on the breeze. For Staunton State Park’s Volunteer Angler Team leader, this is an ideal summer day.
Michael is a longtime volunteer at Staunton State Park, and it’s easy to see he’s tremendously passionate about it. He’s spent time volunteering with several of the park’s programs before finding his true calling: Staunton’s fishing clinics.
In 2020, after two years of volunteering with the park’s track chair program, Park Manager Zach Taylor came to Michael with a special request.
“Zach approached me and said … ‘Michael would you be interested in managing the Angler Team?’” Michael recalls.
“I felt like I had died and gone to heaven,” he adds with a luscent smile.
The silver-haired, soft-spoken man with an obsession for fishing was clearly up to the task.
Five years after taking the helm as leader of the Volunteer Angler Team, Michael has raised a small army of volunteers. Nowadays, he’s coordinating, planning and running nearly 100 fishing clinics per year with the help of 18 volunteers.
But for Michael, his love of the park and volunteering isn’t just about fishing. That’s why he’s weaving through the pine trees with an old butterfly net, halting every so often to collect a small piece of rubbish.
“Every time I’m out here, I treat it like it’s my house. And I go around and pick up trash, and clean it up and straighten it up,” Michael says.
But his clean-up duties don’t detract from his passion for fishing and love of running the clinics. He just considers trash collection to be a little bonus, and a small point of pride.
After circling both ponds, Michael arrives back at the gear storage shed and checks in with his team of volunteers. For this clinic, he has four others helping.
The shoreline and shed are buzzing with activity. The other volunteers are busy fixing bobbers, baiting hooks and untangling fishing lines.
On the banks of lower Davis Pond, children and adults alike are getting in on the action. Every few minutes someone excitedly screams or calls out, followed shortly by a trout splashing across the pond’s surface.
The clinic’s participants are from Freedom Hunters, an organization that provides outdoor recreational opportunities to military members, veterans and their families.
Freedom Hunters hosts adventures across the country (even internationally), and today they’re visiting Staunton State Park.
“Fishing is not the real reason we’re here. It’s about building relationships with people who are coming into the park,” Michael shares while standing in the shade overlooking the pond.
“We want to get to know these guys who have served in the military today that are visiting with us, and know a little bit more about their lives. What they do. How they have served,” he adds, “So we’re here to serve them today.”
Anthony Pace keeps an eye on the clinic, leaning against the bumper of a nearby car. As the founder of Freedom Hunters, he’s welcoming participants to the clinic.
The value of these clinics, made possible through volunteers like Michael, is something he treasures. But not for himself. It’s really for his group’s members and their families.
“The therapeutic value of being outdoors and being with other veterans is huge,” Anthony says.
He attests these opportunities can even rescue people from the darkest parts of their lives.
“There’s been events that we’ve had, half-day fishing events, and I’ve had veterans come back later and say ‘You know that event saved my life,’” he says.
“You never know whose life you’re going to touch just by being out here and experiencing Mother Nature,” he adds.
On the edge of the pond several dozen yards below, a father helps his son cast toward some rising trout. The bobber splashes down just offshore, shooting crystalline water drops skyward.
The bite is pretty good by any measure. Bobbers are consistently dancing, or diving, across the pond.
Among the fleet of volunteers helping Michael run clinics are Bill Mock and Keith Festag. The two of them are re-rigging rods and checking bait supplies at the gear shed. So far, a fair bit of their morning has been spent re-baiting hooks. Side-by-side they’re a bit like the Muppets duo Statler and Waldorf, but much friendlier.
“I volunteer not because I can. It’s because I want to,” Bill says.
He’s holding a small flat tackle box in one hand and a fishing rod in the other.
“It makes you feel good. You’re helping somebody … You meet lots of people this way. Good conversations with people. And seeing the smile on somebody’s face, a kid’s face, when they catch their first fish, you can’t wipe that smile off of there,” he adds.
“Sure you can. You tell ‘em to kiss it!” Keith chimes in with a toothy grin.
They both erupt in laughter.
Michael is nowhere to be seen. He’s seemingly vanished, like a host throwing a wonderful party, but nowhere to be found.
It might feel strange, but this is all part of Michael’s plan. Because at this very moment, while the other volunteers are handling the last half-hour of fishing, Michael flitters about the park’s visitor center.
He’s preparing a special lunch for the Freedom Hunter anglers. Michael really wanted to give the participants a clinic to remember, so he pulled out all the stops.
Homemade pulled pork sandwiches, cranberry salsa, chips, drinks and dessert are on the menu. The sandwiches and salsa are Michael Hedgpeth originals.
Michael gives a little welcome speech and thanks everyone for attending today. He also reminds them of an unofficial rule: They have to put the cranberry salsa on top of the pulled pork in their sandwich, it tastes best that way. He’s not wrong.
In some ways, Michael stumbled into volunteering how most people his age do.
“I was two years into my retirement at that point. So by then you’re kind of over work and looking for something to fill the gap, you’re tired of doing nothing,” he says.
But stumbled is the wrong word for Michael. He plunged. He strode to the edge of the diving board like an Olympian, and never considered how far the drop was.
A mid-summer picnic with his wife, Susan, set him on a journey that would become a whole new chapter in his life.
“Susan and I, eight years ago, came out on a July 4th picnic. She’s the one who had the idea and read something about this ‘new state park’ and said, ‘Let’s go check it out.’ So we came here and we were both mesmerized,” Michael says.
Their exploratory spirit got the best of them, and they set boot treads to gravel after lunch. Little did they know a winding dirt path through the forest would lead Michael to where he is now.
“We came down the pond trail and came over that hill over there, and I went ‘Oh my goodness, there’s fishing ponds out here! And I don’t have any fishing equipment with me,’” he shares, his voice peaking with exasperation.
“So I was here the next day with my fishing equipment, saw the track chair come over that same hill that I had come over, and fell in love with the track chair program initially,” he says.
And since then, he hasn’t looked back. With close to 500 clinics under his belt and thousands of folks having passed through the program, he’s not even tapping the brakes.
Even when he’s not running fishing clinics, Staunton State Park is like a second home for Michael.
For his Father’s Day weekend this year, his daughter was charged with planning their adventures.
“I said ‘Well let’s do something outdoors,’” Michael recalls.
“And she said ‘That sounds good to me, where do you want to go?’” Michael says, with a slight dramatic pause.
A sly grin breaks across his face.
“She said ‘Never mind, stupid question,’” he adds.
Written and photographed by Forrest Czarnecki. Forrest is a Colorado hunter and angler, and he is a Digital Media Specialist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
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