I kept a firm grip on the rainbow trout as I removed the lure from its lip. Then, my heart racing with excitement, I lowered the fish to the water and watched it flash away.

I remained hooked.

I caught that 10-inch fryling five years ago on Fall Creek using a $5 fly rod given to me by my neighbor Gil. The creek is spectacular as it cascades down the 150-foot drop of Ithaca Falls. Only 100-feet further, however, it runs past a decrepit gun factory and underneath a graffitied bridge before flowing adjacent to my high school and out to Cayuga Lake. Aside from the falls, the creek is largely overlooked. Nearly all of the high school students I know who cross that bridge daily do so with no thought of the creek below.

When I was a toddler, my moms say I used to point and ask, “What? What? What?” Even now my inquisitive nature is obvious. Unlike my friends, I had noticed people fly fishing in Fall Creek. Mesmerized by their graceful casts, I pestered Gil into teaching me. From that first thrilling encounter with a trout, I knew I needed to catch more. I had a new string of questions. I wanted to understand trout behavior, how to find them, and what they ate. There was research to do.

I devoted myself to fly fishing. I asked questions. I woke up at 4 a.m. to fish before school. I spent days not catching anything. Yet, I persisted. The Kid’s Book of Fishing was replaced by Norman MacLean’s A River Runs Through It. Soon Ernest Hemingway’s essays found their place next to Trout Unlimited magazines by my bed.

I sought teachers. I continued to fish with Gil, and at his invitation joined the local Trout Unlimited Chapter. I enrolled in a fly-tying class.

There I met Ken, a soft-spoken molecular biologist, who taught me to start each fly I make by crimping the hook to reduce harm to fish, and Mike, a sarcastic Deadhead lawyer, who turns over rocks at all times of year to “match the hatch” and figure out which insects fish are eating. Thanks to my mentors, I can identify and create almost every type of Northeastern mayfly, caddisfly, and stonefly.

The more I learned, the more protective I felt of the creek and its inhabitants. My knowledge of mayflies and experience fishing in many New York streams led me to notice the lack of Blue-Winged Olive Mayflies in Fall Creek. I figured out why while discussing water quality in my AP Biology class; lead from the gun factory had contaminated the creek and ruined the mayfly habitat. Now, I participate in stream clean-up days, have documented the impact of invasive species on trout and other native fish, and have chosen to continue to explore the effects of pollutants on waterways in my AP Environmental Science class.

Last year, on a frigid October morning, I started a conversation with the man fishing next to me. Banks, I later learned, is a contemporary artist who nearly died struggling with a heroin addiction. When we meet on the creek these days we talk about casting techniques, aquatic insects, and fishing ethics. We also talk about the healing power of fly fishing. I know Banks would agree with Henry David Thoreau, who wrote “[Many men] lay so much stress on the fish which they catch or fail to catch, and on nothing else, as if there were nothing else to be caught.”

Initially, my goal was to catch trout. What I landed was a passion. Thanks to that first morning on Fall Creek, I’ve found a calling that consumes my free time, compels me to teach fly fishing to others, and drives what I want to study in college.

I will be leaving Fall Creek soon. I am eager to step into new streams.