On a mid-May morning, the school buses hadn’t even stopped rolling when Leah McGill already knew what kind of day it was going to be.
She could hear it before she could see it — the giggles, the chatter, the not-so-low hum of about 30 fifth graders spilling out into a cold and rainy 40-degree morning at Lake Lehow, just south of Denver.
The rain was coming in sideways at times, but McGill, a volunteer fishing clinic instructor with Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), was already smiling.
Leah McGill knows the first thing about fishing is rarely just about the fish
“You feel this ball of energy as the group comes in,” she said. “And that’s when you know it’s game on.”
McGill didn’t grow up fishing. She didn’t grow up in the outdoors at all, really. Her family wasn’t especially drawn to it, and for a long time, neither was she.
That changed in college while she was studying agricultural biology at Colorado State University (CSU). She kept finding herself pulled not toward the lab, but toward people she found outside of it — farmer’s markets, school and community events, anywhere she could take something complicated and make it more accessible.
No matter the discipline, McGill kept coming back to what she enjoyed most: teaching something to someone who’d never thought about it before.
“I kind of found my role as an informal educator,” she said. “It’s a career that I’ve kind of discovered for myself.”
Not long after graduating from CSU in 2023, McGill saw CPW’s Education and Interpretation Internship job posting, and something clicked.
“I saw it as an opportunity to do the science that I love while working with people,” she said, “and to kind of simplify the science that’s happening and connect people to it and the world around them.”
She completed her internship with CPW in 2024 and expected, maybe, to move on. Instead, she just kept coming back.
These days her schedule stays full with a job at the airport and overnight sleepover programs at the Denver Aquarium once or twice a month. A day off with no plans, she’ll tell you, feels like a sick day. And yet the fishing clinics aren’t what gets cut. If anything, they’re what she looks forward to most.
“People charge my battery,” she said. “So I’m like, ‘Yeah, let’s go do something productive and get to socialize with everyone.’”
McGill didn’t come into this work as an angler but truly learned alongside the kids. She was fixing poles, practicing casts, and figuring it all out in real time. That authenticity, she thinks, matters more than some people realize. It’s easier to lower some barriers for others when you’ve had to climb over them yourself.
“This is the first role where I’ve gotten to really connect in that way and have kind of a really dirty role in the outdoors,” she said.
Her philosophy on the water is simple: No one here needs to already know anything.
“We’re all here to have a positive experience,” she said. “We’re not here to be experts and we don’t expect you to know everything.”
In practice, that means paying attention to some of the finer print — noticing the kid who looks most hesitant, or the one who’s started to check out before the first cast. Her go-to icebreakers are easy ones: favorite superhero, recent movies, anything to find a hook in whatever world a 10-year-old might be living in that day. And whenever the fishing clearly isn’t going to be the thing for a particular student, she pivots without hesitation.
“Maybe they really like helping other people or fixing the poles or something like that,” she said.
The May clinic tested all of it. The air was cold and the rain was steady from the start. Kids rotated on and off the buses just to warm up. Lines tangled and snagged on rocks.
But McGill never blinked.
One student stood out to her afterward. She remembers a small girl, visibly shivering, who just kept casting through all of it.
“She was really sweet and so patient,” McGill said, “She just kept on trying.”
Those kinds of moments are really what McGill believes these clinics are about. Not fish or technique, but something quieter than all of that.
“Even if they had a great time and they don’t ever want to go fishing again, they feel like they can try something they didn’t think was for them,” she said. “Maybe they can try something else or do something at school that they’re nervous about.”
For anyone considering volunteering, whether they know how to fish or not, McGill is straightforward about what’s waiting on the other side.
“It’s just such a valuable experience that you’re going to take something away from it,” she said, “And whether it’s about fishing in the outdoors or not, you’re making a positive impact.”
When asked what she hopes kids carry with them after a day like that one, she keeps it honest.
“That they tried something new and it went okay,” she said. “Fishing can be accessible to anyone. They don’t have to like it, but they were brave enough to try it.”
And like any kid stepping off a bus into the rain to try catching a fish, it’s the same thing she hopes for any new volunteer who shows up feeling uncertain. Trying something new, even badly or while soaking wet, is more than enough.
And while McGill’s still never gone fishing by herself, after a morning like that one, she’s been thinking about changing that.
Story and Photos by Ryan Jones. Ryan is a visual coordinator for Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
Do you think you’d be a good volunteer? Register today to discover more about angler outreach programs with Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
