S2E4 Let's Talk About Fishburgh and the Kid Who Left Different

A kid catches a fish and suddenly stands a little taller. That moment is why we wanted Phil Papa on the show. Phil is the founder of Fishburgh Outdoors, a Pittsburgh youth fishing program built to help families get outside, get off screens, and feel that rare mix of calm and lit up that happens near the water. What starts as a bluegill at a city pond becomes something bigger: confidence, patience, and a new story about who you can be. 

We get into the practical side of urban fishing for beginners, including why “catching” matters more than “waiting,” how small hooks and simple bait set kids up for success, and how Phil’s bamboo catching sticks solve the two things that ruin most first trips: tangles and boredom. Phil also shares the unforgettable “crappie kid” story, where one shy child lands a rare fish and leaves different than he arrived, then comes back ready to teach the next kid. 

We also zoom out to Pittsburgh’s waterways and conservation. Phil pushes back on the myth that the rivers are hopeless, talks about proper fish handling and catch and release, and explains why anglers are often the ones funding clean water through the Dingell-Johnson Act and fishing license dollars. Then we tackle the messy part: litter, public trust, and how stewardship gets passed forward one garbage bag at a time. If you feel pulled to help, Fishburgh needs people behind the scenes as much as it needs anglers. 

If this conversation hits home, subscribe so you do not miss what’s next, share it with someone who needs a healthy hobby, and leave a review to help more listeners find the show. What is the thing you reach for when life gets heavy?

Connect with Phillip Papa & Fishburgh Outdoors

Fishburgh hosts free fishing events the last Saturday of every month. No experience needed.

→  Website & Event Sign-Up: fishburgh.com

→  Follow on Social Media: @FishburghOutdoors

Check Fishburgh's social media for the latest events, locations, and everything happening on the water in Pittsburgh.

The Conservation Connection

In this episode Phil mentioned that part of every fishing equipment sale goes directly to conservation — he knew it was real but couldn't place the name. We found it.

•  The Dingell-Johnson Act (1950) — also known as the Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Act — collects excise taxes on fishing equipment and funnels 100% of those funds into fisheries conservation and restoration. It has been running for 75 years.

•  On top of that, 100% of every fishing license sold in this country goes to conservation. By law. Not some of it — all of it. Every cast is a contribution.

→  Learn More — Dingell-Johnson Act: https://www.fws.gov/service/sport-fish-restoration

Transcript

Calm And Lit Up

Fishburgh Outdoors 0:00

They go fishing and, he's not the same kid that he was when he showed up the first time.

Sherry 0:05

That's a kid who left different than he arrived because someone decided to show up for him. Maybe you already know what it feels like, calm and lit up at the same time. The healthy thing you reach for when life gets heavy. For Phil Papa, it's fishing. This episode is about finding yours. Phillip, welcome to This is It! We're glad to have you here with us today. You have something special to share with us, and you piqued our interest because we're all about, people finding their way through all the layers of life and what brings them joy, in the journey. Before we get into everything that Fishburgh does in the city, I wanted you to tell us, how does a person end up making fishing their life's work in Pittsburgh?

Fishburgh Outdoors 0:59

Well, it starts pretty early, probably around, I'm gonna say the mid-'90s. We'll use 1995. I just, I loved it ever since my dad took me to that little pond in Highland Park, Carnegie Lake, next to the swimming pool. Started catching some bluegills. It was pretty simple, and just that first initial, fish, catching it, and, the joy and rush that I got, there's a saying, they say, "The tug is the drug." It carries on. So, I've loved it ever since. I couldn't get, enough fishing, so I just really wanted to share that with as many people as I could. And one thing that I noticed is that, in the inner city especially, fishing's not really cool. Not a lot of people are into it, and, that was likely because people just had never had that first experience and, the success of catching fish early. So I started just volunteering and, it became the thing for me. I've caught a ton of big fish. I've caught a lot of stuff that people would only dream about, and after a while, the new challenge was: how can I help create this for other people who otherwise wouldn't be interested in it? And it's just snowballed from there.

Sherry 2:06

So somebody planted a seed for you, and you said that was your dad. That was your father.

Fishburgh Outdoors 2:11

Yeah

Sherry 2:11

You'd get along w-well with my son. He lives, breathes, and eats fishing. And, that came through his dad, who was introduced to fishing from his grandfather who used to fish down behind the Penn. Yes

Fishburgh Outdoors 2:26

The carp spot? That was a really popular spot for carp and catfish, which is pretty much all we had, back when grandfather was fishing. There wasn't a whole lot of game fish, so carp and catfish was basically what you were gonna catch if you expected to catch anything, and that spot there particularly, I'm not exactly sure why, has always been and is still today,

Sherry 2:46

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 2:47

A pretty well-known spot for them. Yeah.

Sherry 2:49

And as far as bodies of water go that are in the city it's, it's mainly rivers, right? You go to Carnegie...

Fishburgh Outdoors 2:57

Yeah, that's a lake, but that's a man-made lake that just feeds into the river, yeah.

Sherry 3:04

Then it's stocked?

Fishburgh Outdoors 3:06

Uh, we, get it stocked once a year, catfish and bass. There's been sunfish and bluegills in there for as long as I can remember. They just seem to just materialize out of thin air any time you got a body of water.

Sherry 3:19

The ones that are fun for the kids to catch.

Fishburgh Outdoors 3:22

That's the one on the logo, it's the pumpkinseed. They have two goals or two missions in life, and that's to feed bass and be caught by children, and they do a good job of it.

Jodi 3:33

Phil, when did you decide to take this from a hobby to what it is now? What happened to get you to the point of creating Fishburgh?

How Fishburgh Outdoors Was Born

Fishburgh Outdoors 3:42

So, it started, I was leaving the Highland Park swimming pool. I was with my wife, and my daughter was two years old at that time, there's a little cabin there. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but there's a small little wooden cabin that's at the one end of the lake, and ever since I was a kid, I've never seen it open. I've never seen anybody going in there. I've never seen it used for anything, and, we would always fantasize about what it was for, what was in there, so, fast-forward to maybe about six years ago, I was leaving the pool with my wife and daughter, and any time there's a body of water, I always gotta go check it out, even if it's somewhere like that I've been a thousand times. So, we're walking over, and lo and behold, the cabin door is open.

Sherry 4:27

Oh.

Fishburgh Outdoors 4:28

It's open, and there's a couple older gentlemen there, and maybe, like, three children, and they're in front of the cabin, so, I got the impression that they were the ones who opened it, and I said, "Babe, I might not ever get this chance again in my life. I gotta see what's in this,

Sherry 4:43

What's in there?

Fishburgh Outdoors 4:44

Yeah, so spoiler alert, cobwebs and, like, just crust and,

Sherry 4:50

nothing!

Fishburgh Outdoors 4:52

This group was having a youth fishing event. I believe they were called Pittsburgh Let's Go Fishing at the time. The Reverend Spencer Simon, he explained to me what they were doing. They were just trying to get some kids fishing, and I said, "Sign me up." How can I do this? How can I get signed up for this?" So, he gave me the clipboard, I signed up, and I started volunteering with them, and I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

Sherry 5:16

Yes.

Fishburgh Outdoors 5:18

Anybody who knows me knows that I love to talk, I love to share information, I love to talk about fishing, I love teaching people new things.

Sherry 5:24

Okay.

Fishburgh Outdoors 5:25

It started to snowball a little bit. I was really into it. I wanted to do it all the time. I was trying to expand the program. Well, they were a smaller organization and I feel like I was kind of thrusting more on them than they had the capacity for. I'm also, big into nature, and the who, what, where. Why are the fish here? What are the fish doing there? More so than just, let's get a group of kids together and go fishing. So after a couple years, I left to start Fishburgh Outdoors with the goal of doing a lot more than just the pond, doing a lot more than just catching the bluegills at the pond. I wanted to start taking some kids down the river. We've got a trophy bass fishery, we've got a trophy walleye fishery, we've got gigantic flathead catfish, that get to like 50 pounds. Wanted to start a program that would allow me to so much more than just catching a couple bluegills in the pond, right?

Sherry 6:15

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 6:16

That's where, Fishburgh Outdoors came from, and once I started running my own program and was at the helm and started getting all these ideas, I said, "You know what? This is gonna become my life's work," because if I wanted to do it right, it was gonna take a tremendous amount of time and effort. So

Sherry 6:33

Yeah. You had the whole picture in your head.

Fishburgh Outdoors 6:35

Yeah, I started looking back at how I got to the point where I'm at, you know what I mean, in life as far as fishing, and it all started at that pond, and having the success as a child that I had catching, you know. I'd go up there and catch, I'm not kidding you, like 100, 200 of these little sunfish. Granted, they're nothing to get excited about, but as a child, it meant everything to me. Was like the greatest thing ever, and it just slowly led to the next step. Okay, now I started riding my bike down to the Allegheny River behind the Tastee Freeze, you know? And then I started seeing people across the river, so then I started riding my bike across the Highland Park Bridge and fishing down there. And then I met an older kid, by the name of Sean, who was I think four years older than me and he had had a car and he had been going other places 'cause his dad was into fishing. He said, "Hey man, let's go to this spot or let's go to that spot, or let's go up Erie and catch some steelhead." And now it had really taken off, and it was all started at that pond. And had I not gone up there and fished or had I gone up there and fished and didn't catch anything, I likely would've never really got into it because fishing is, I shouldn't say this, but fishing is pretty boring. Catching's what's exciting, you know what I mean? Fishing is just just wetting the line. Catching is what we're trying to do at Fishburgh which is let's pull some fish out of the water. Let's see

Sherry 7:56

Yeah. You're making the bridge from boring to exciting, teaching them how to get there.

Fishburgh Outdoors 8:01

The kids, they're not gonna, especially this day and age, if they're not touching the fish or seeing fish, they wanna immediately scroll social

Sherry 8:08

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 8:09

They wanna watch YouTube or they wanna do something else, and if you're not catching them, you're not catching them, so they're, you're gonna let them go. They're gonna get away. And they're not gonna come back 'cause they'll kinda identify fishing as something boring. They'll remember, dad's like, "Hey, you wanna go fishing?" They'll remember the last time we went, we sat at this lake for four hours, you know, twiddling our thumbs, and it was hot, it was dirty, and there was no Wi-Fi and stuff like that, you know what I mean?

Sherry 8:35

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 8:40

It was exciting. I got to see stuff. You know, that's, that's how you get them. It starts with catching those little sunfish, which is why they're such a fantastic... They're, they're most people in the United States' first fish. Me, most people, they don't just immediately go down the river and start catching 20-inch smallmouth. It just, uh, it just doesn't happen.

Sherry 8:54

Yeah. Oh, yeah. As soon as we brought up the panfish, I think I got a silly smile on my face 'cause it just ignites that memory. I remember that feeling. How do you handle the battle with the technology on your fishing event days?

The Simple Setup That Hooks Kids

Fishburgh Outdoors 9:09

I don't worry about it. It's, it's never been a concern because we catch a lot of fish. We touch a lot of fish. So the the only phones you're gonna see out at Fishburgh are taking pictures.

Sherry 9:20

So what's your magic? How do you always have a good day on the water? It's, 'cause the panfish? Or just taking, you know the right spots and what to do?

Fishburgh Outdoors 9:30

That, the fish are there. So what has granted us a lot of success was when I first went up there with my dad, right, we didn't have a lot of money. We didn't even have a car. So what he did was, it's all about having the small hook. You got the fish, you know, if you've seen sunfish, their mouth is really tiny. I mean, it's like you can barely fit a pea in their mouth. So it was important to have a really small hook. So, we went to Dunham's over at Waterworks, got some really small hooks, I think they might have been like size 10 or 12, and a piece of string, and a stick, that's what we used. We'd go move the top layer of leaves and topsoil, catch a couple worms, put a little piece on the hook, and, if you've got the right, setup, It's like the magnet game, but with real fish. You're gonna pull 'em right out of the water. So I have an issue here where I live where somebody planted some bamboo, and I don't mean like, you know, the Japanese bamboo. I mean like the actual stalks of bamboo,

Sherry 10:29

Oh, yeah, that goes wild.

Fishburgh Outdoors 10:32

Yeah, they've had to start cutting it down because it's like taken over the whole hillside.

Sherry 10:35

Mm-hmm.

Fishburgh Outdoors 10:36

And I'm thinking what can I use these bamboo sticks for? And then it dawned on me.

Sherry 10:41

I saw that on your social media. I was wondering about that.

Fishburgh Outdoors 10:45

Yeah, the fishstick.

Sherry 10:45

That, that's really cool.

Fishburgh Outdoors 10:48

The catching stick. So started making those as a way to be able to catch the fish 'cause one of the issues that I had at previous programs are the kids, they're restless. They wanna cast them rods out, reel 'em in, cast them out, reel 'em in, cast them out, reel 'em in, and it's creates two problems. One, that's not conducive for catching fish if you're fishing for sunfish. Also, they do excellent job of tangling them up, so you spend a lot of time untangling and not a lot of time catching. So I was like, okay, I think I can solve two problems here with this. One, they're, they're low to no maintenance. You cannot tangle it. Even though some kids actually do tangle it, but I can only imagine what they'd have done with a real fishing if they can tangle these. So it was just a lot easier to just have them, you know, the setup, it was It also allowed me to start introducing fishing to much younger children. So like my daughter caught her first sunfish unassisted. She might not even have been two years old because it's you know, no maintenance. It's just hold a stick and just literally lift it in and out of the water. So that's how we have a lot of success are the fishing sticks, the fish sticks.

Sherry 12:00

Yeah. Right.

Fishburgh Outdoors 12:01

I make them all myself. I cut down the bamboo. I make 'em in my garage. You know, I wrap 'em up in plastic, and we, we go.

Sherry 12:09

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 12:10

It also allows me to give them out after the program.

Sherry 12:10

That's perfect.

Fishburgh Outdoors 12:11

I see kids up there on weekdays, I'll stop up at the lake and they'll be fishing with one of the sticks I gave them.

Sherry 12:20

That's what I was gonna say. Even if that one broke or something, they could get right back into it pretty easily to recreate what you gave them.

Fishburgh Outdoors 12:27

You won't even need the stick, to be honest. You could, like,

Sherry 12:31

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 12:31

I think the first time we caught a bluegill, we didn't even use a stick. We literally just, flung the line out there, and my dad just ripped the fish right out of the water. I mean, I could not believe it. And he was not an angler, like full disclosure . He was not, like, a fishing guy. We didn't even have a rod.

Sherry 12:48

Just something to do that day.

Jodi 12:50

It was something to do.

Sherry 12:52

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 12:52

Yeah, a lot of days. I had a brother, he was 11 months older than me. My dad was a single father, so single father, living in the city, not making a lot of money. Transportation was difficult, but we had to do something with our time. I grew up in East Liberty, and it was in the mid-'90s, early '90s, it was a lot different than the East Liberty you know today. So he was just trying to find something to do to keep us off the street, you know? And, it worked. It absolutely worked.

Sherry 13:19

He took you to the water and you came away different and doing something positive out of it. And it is really something that your dad wasn't a fisherman. He didn't come from a fishing family. He just decided to show up with what he had for his kids, and that's what we call agency. And we'd say that he owned it. He just grabbed a stick and a worm and made something happen for his kids, and it became your life's work. You said, some of those kids you see on the weekdays coming back to fishing.

Confidence Built One Crappie At Time

Sherry 13:57

Was there someone who came to Fishburgh and walked away different?

Fishburgh Outdoors 14:01

The, the crappie kid. So there was this kid, Cam. He came up when I was still volunteering at the original program. Him and his mom came up. He was a real shy kid.

Sherry 14:10

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 14:12

Shy kid, you know what I mean? Soft-spoken, he was interested in fishing, but he was not one of those kids that was like super rambunctious, you know what I mean? Trying to catch fish, talking over top of you.

Sherry 14:22

Mm-hmm.

Fishburgh Outdoors 14:22

He was shier, you know what I mean? His mom was a single mom, and I took him under my wing with the stick and he caught a Crappie. We don't have very many other kinds of fish in there besides bluegills, because we got a lot of poachers. I don't know if you know what a poacher is, but it's somebody who's taking fish that you're not supposed to take. It's a catch and release. We don't have many besides these sunfish, and this kid caught a crappie, and everybody then was like, "Oh my God," crowding around him to see this fish that looked different from all the other fish. So he became the

Sherry 14:54

He's like, "I'm the man."

Fishburgh Outdoors 14:56

It's fun to say that, but we called him the crappie kid because he had caught a crappie, you know what I mean? And from that...

Jodi 15:02

That's great.

Sherry 15:03

He's never gonna forget that moment. That's gonna be a memory that he's talking about one day like you're talking about your childhood. In some ways, I wonder if it ever really is about the fish. What I heard in that story was a kid who left different than he arrived. It builds a belief about who you can be.

Fishburgh Outdoors 15:20

Absolutely. And now he drives to take him fishing, like, all over the place. They live actually over by where the Western Penitentiary place is, and they go down there and they catch fish, and he's been coming back ever since, and he's really come out of his shell.

Sherry 15:33

Right.

Fishburgh Outdoors 15:35

He's actually caught a couple other fish that were really unique. He caught a green sunfish. It was the only one I've ever seen caught out of there ever in my life, and I've been going there since 1994. I believe he caught an albino catfish.

Sherry 15:48

Oh.

Fishburgh Outdoors 15:49

He's really a go-getter. He's been coming up ever since.

Sherry 15:51

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 15:52

And he now comes to Fishburgh, and they go fishing and, he's not the same kid that he was when he showed up the first time. Now, he will talk to everybody and be like,

Sherry 15:59

That's so awesome.

Fishburgh Outdoors 16:00

"This is how you do it. This is how you do it." You know what I mean? I'm like, "Okay, Cam, you're the expert.

Sherry 16:03

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 16:04

So show me, show the other kids." Just recently at our first event of this year, there was another kid who was getting upset because he wasn't having a lot of success. He couldn't catch the fish. He was getting upset. He thought "These fish are stupid. These fish suck." And right before the program was over, I think like the last 15 minutes, he caught a crappie, and he's now the crappie kid.

Sherry 16:26

Oh, that's the one.

Fishburgh Outdoors 16:28

"Yeah, Cam, you're not the crappie kid now." Now he will likely be,

Sherry 16:31

The new crappy kid.

Fishburgh Outdoors 16:33

Yeah, they love when they catch a fish, and now all of a suddenly everybody's crowding around you and looking at you and this fish that you pulled out of the water. It's, really does a lot for their self-esteem. Builds confidence.

Sherry 16:46

Yeah, and also patience.

Jodi 16:47

And Phil, this has to do a lot for you as well, right? I'm sure that the feeling that you must get when you see the kids get there.

Fishburgh Outdoors 16:58

Absolutely... So, like I said, I've caught a lot of trophy fish. You know what I mean? I've caught fish that, grown men dream about and, will maybe never catch ever. So I still love fishing, like I did when I was a little kid, but, the new challenge for me in life has been creating that for somebody else. You know what I mean? For someone else. Like, like, that,

Sherry 17:19

Giving.

Fishburgh Outdoors 17:20

The big catch that is now the chase for me, being able to teach somebody else how to do this, you know what I mean? 'Cause it's one thing for me to do it. I've been doing this for decades at this point.

Sherry 17:29

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 17:30

For me to be good enough to teach somebody else who doesn't have any experience how to do that as well. So, that's now become the sport for me.

Sherry 17:38

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 17:38

So, like, the 30-inch walleye or the 20-inch bass for me is now creating a new crappie kid.

Sherry 17:46

You can really change lives by connecting somebody to fishing.

Fishburgh Outdoors 17:53

Believe me, I don't do it unless I believe that it was gonna make a difference in some kids' lives, for sure, 100%.

Sherry 17:58

In so many ways, for one thing, patience. We talk a lot about patience, on this show, and learning to wait and I think fishing is one of the few things left that actually does teach that. And you just gave an example of how you already see that in your work. Keeping them off the screens, you said you don't have to do anything for that because you're giving them success. They're feeling success with what you're doing and learning what it feels like to get joy from something like fishing. Jodi, did you grow up fishing?

Jodi 18:29

Yeah.

Sherry 18:30

Yeah, you did.

Jodi 18:32

Yeah. Didn't everybody?

Sherry 18:32

No, that's what I'm saying. So that's why I wanna speak to that,

Fishburgh Outdoors 18:35

Especially in the city. Where did you grow up, Jodi?

Jodi 18:39

I started off in the north side and then we moved to Butler so I've had a lot of exposure especially fishing around the cricks.

Fishburgh Outdoors 18:40

So in the city.

Jodi 18:46

My dad's whole family were real big on doing the fishing trips.

Fishburgh Outdoors 18:51

Well, you've touched on another point. Your dad and your family, they were into the fishing. Imagine if your dad's not.

Sherry 18:58

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 18:59

Imagine if your family's not into it. Something like that. Like, my dad, he was not an angler. He was not super into it. We just happened to live extremely close to this lake, and he had enough wherewithal to figure out how to catch these sunfish, and he made this happen for us just from nowhere. He just did it .

Sherry 19:16

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 19:17

His dad didn't fish. You know what I mean? His brothers didn't fish. They, they didn't do it.

Sherry 19:21

And it was the biggest gift.

Fishburgh Outdoors 19:22

You have thousands of kids in this city.

Sherry 19:23

Yeah.

Pittsburgh Rivers Are Not Ruins

Fishburgh Outdoors 19:24

The city whose families and parents don't fish, and it's just not even something that crosses their mind, and we've got all these fantastic waterways here that are just, in my opinion, underutilized. There's still this misconception that all the waterways, it's like a post-industrial wasteland, which, granted, it was for a while, but that's not the case anymore. And,

Sherry 19:47

Right.

Fishburgh Outdoors 19:48

A barrier or a deterrent for a lot of people to even wanna consider going fishing. I eat fish out of the river. When I tell people that, they look at me like my hair is on fire.

Sherry 19:58

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 20:00

What? You can't eat fish out of the river.

Sherry 20:01

No, cause it-

Fishburgh Outdoors 20:01

You can't do this. What? I'm like, dude, what are you talking about? I'm not eating them every single day, but how is this any worse than the Filet-O-Fish sandwich you got at McDonald's?

Sherry 20:12

Oh, yeah. You have an argument there.

Fishburgh Outdoors 20:15

This isn't granddad's river. This is not your granddad's Allegheny anymore, I can tell you that. To catch a 20-inch smallmouth or a 30-inch walleye or a paddlefish or we even catch trout in the river sometimes. It would be unheard of 20 or 30 years ago. What?

Sherry 20:34

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 20:35

All there were where catfish and carp, because they have a high tolerance for low oxygen and for more polluted water and lack of all of these other things that game fish and other fish need to not only live, but procreate and make more. I mean, we still have a way to go but like I said, it's not grandad's river. It's not the same anymore.

Sherry 20:37

And you can't love fishing and not love the Rivers. And the ecosystems that make it all possible.

Fishburgh Outdoors 20:58

Not at all. That's, that 's the one. Exactly. You hit the nail on the head. How can you care about something you don't have any experience in or your not invested in?

Sherry 21:12

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 21:17

Some environmentalists will look at Fishburgh with skepticism because they might correlate, fishing with, like, oh, you're hurting the fish or, you know, whatever the case may be. But in reality, a lot of the conservation efforts are funded directly by fishing. I don't know the name of the fund exactly, but a percentage of every single fishing equipment sale in the country, they have to send a portion of it to this fund that directly benefits waterway conservation.

Sherry 21:48

I think I've heard of that. I think it's been around for like 75 years, and I wanna say buying a fishing license does something like that too. I'll look it up to be sure, and I'll put it in the show notes. When you're developing that passion in somebody, you naturally become passionate in protecting.

Fishburgh Outdoors 22:06

Without clean water, you can't have fish period.

Sherry 22:09

Mm-hmm.

Fishburgh Outdoors 22:09

You know? It just won't happen. You can't have one without the other. That was one of the main points as to why Fishburgh is different than a lot of the other organizations. Not to, throw shade on any of them, but, we are very environmentally conscious. We are very, proper fish handling conscious, because you can't have one without the other.

Sherry 22:26

Right.

Fishburgh Outdoors 22:28

So I'm now trying to create vested interest in these kids to protect these waterways as they grow up. You can't have fish without clean waterways, and you can't care about something that you don't really know about or have experience in. So introducing them to these waterways is basically introducing them to conservation and becoming a steward.

Sherry 22:52

And that's another part of taking care of community. You said, though, not everyone is a fishing advocate. So it's good to have your voice out there doing this work.

Jodi 23:05

To somebody listening what would you want them to know about this?

Fishburgh Outdoors 23:08

I'd want them to go out there and go for it. I want them to give it a try. Go out there, and even if you're not gonna fish, spend some time on the water. Get out of the house. Get off the screen. Try. Like my dad, you don't have to be some avid angler or come from a long line of fishermen, you know what I mean? You just gotta have the interest and wanna do it. Yeah. I'm gonna be adding some, non-fishing programming for my, I like to call them, does it hurt to fish people. 'Cause, you know, granted, it's probably not the greatest day of this fish's life, but we take a lot of pride in handling them correctly. You know what I mean? Not leaving them out of the water too long. Not using the wrong hooks. Not laying them down on the concrete. So, I do a lot of stuff to take as much care as I can because they are living beings, too.

Sherry 23:52

You're teaching fishing responsibly, so, which is important.

Fishburgh Outdoors 23:54

Yeah. I try. Yeah, of course. So I , And I've noticed, fishing has become extremely popular, a lot more than it was before. After COVID, I guess people were looking for hobbies, and I've seen an increase in the amount of litter, and just balled up line in the fishing area.

Teaching Stewardship And Picking Up Trash

Fishburgh Outdoors 24:10 Sherry 24:14

Oh, yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 24:15

So like, the last thing that I wanna do is introduce thousands of kids to fishing only for them to start littering and start mistreating the area and all that other stuff. So before every Fishburgh program starts, I spend like 30 minutes cleaning up any garbage around the lake, and when it's over and everybody's left, I do the same thing because my biggest fear is for some of the kids or families that we introduce to this to leave some litter up there because now it's being counterproductive. I've introduced people to fishing, but I've also now introduced a lot of poor behavior and littering to the environment as well. At that point I would've rather they didn't fish at all.

Sherry 24:58

I'm sure you're making that part of the experience trying to be proactive about it and making that connection between the joy they're getting from the environment. And to take care of it.

Jodi 25:10

And to have personal responsibility.

Fishburgh Outdoors 25:13

Absolutely. Yeah, you gotta care. It's one thing I've noticed. I, I used to get I still get really upset when I see the people littering, but I don't take it as personal anymore because what I understand is a lot of them didn't have somebody growing up who put an emphasis on this. You You're doing the same stuff your fathers do, and your father's doing the same thing his father did. So, as opposed to going out here and trying to fistfight everybody I think what can I do to lessen this in the future?"

Sherry 25:47

Sure.

Fishburgh Outdoors 25:48

So what I do is look back in time. So we'll look at right now as the past, because I'm introducting these kids to how to do this the proper way and to not litter, and picking up other people's litter so that, you know, 20 years from now they're not littering and they're picking up other people's litter. And it'll have a butterfly effect.

Sherry 26:07

Right.

Jodi 26:08

It will.

Sherry 26:08

Yep.

Jodi 26:10

I used to get really mad because my dad kept garbage bags in the car, and if we were out somewhere and there was a lot of litter, like we'd go through Riverview Park, if he saw litter, he pulled the car over and we all had to get out and pick it up and put it in a trash bag. And as a kid, it was really annoying, but I'm still like this as an adult. And so are my kids.

Fishburgh Outdoors 26:27

Yeah. Yeah, it's important. I do the same thing. I keep trash bags. I clean up litter like the first 15 or last 15 minutes of every single time I go fishing, and it's kinda sickening because I go every single day. Some spots I might go two days in a row or every couple days, and I'll pick up every last piece of trash, and lo and behold, the next morning, of garbage again. So it's not getting washed up. It's not like getting the wind blown there. It's people... And, and it kinda hurts me because these are not people that decided to come down the river and litter. These are people who call themselves fishermen. You know what I mean? And it's not just fishing line, it's the empty wrapper packets, it's the gas station food, it's Red Bulls, it's beer. It's people who came down here to go fishing who left all of this, you know? So

Sherry 27:21

Right.

Fishburgh Outdoors 27:22

So, again, I'm trying to instill that in the kids who I'm trying to introduce to fishing this is not acceptable, and we've gotta, change the narrative, because another reason the other environmental groups kind of, I feel, would look at me sideways, is because of the reputation that anglers have due to a small percentage of folks. The majority of it's, it's 10 percent of the anglers account for 100% of the litter. It's insane.

Sherry 27:50

Right, but then everyone gets grouped in as the problem. So Dad put a garbage bag in the car. Now you put a garbage bag in the car, and somewhere out there, Cam is gonna put a garbage bag in his car. And that's how it gets passed forward. One person deciding to show up differently.

Fishburgh Needs People Not Just Money

Sherry 28:08

And that becomes part of your mentorship, as you do each event, which we didn't say yet that you hold monthly events on the last Saturday, of every month through September.

Fishburgh Outdoors 28:17

Yeah, I'll be doing them all the way through September, and I have a back to school event that'll happen in the end of August.

Jodi 28:28

Are you doing all of this yourself?

Fishburgh Outdoors 28:30

I have a team of people that come up to help volunteer at the events, but aside from that, I do it all myself. Yeah.

Sherry 28:38

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 28:39

Yeah, I do a lot.

Sherry 28:41

Where can we direct people if they want to help whether it's volunteer or?

Fishburgh Outdoors 28:46

Fishburgh.com. Just like Pittsburgh, but with the word fish in it. As soon as you go to the website, there's three buttons at the top. One is join our team, which is if you wanna become a volunteer or help out with some of the other stuff behind scenes. You got sign up for the events, and the third one is the catch form. So if you caught a fish and you wanna share the picture or some information, you can supply it there. But one thing I want people to know, you don't have to be an angler in order to help Fishburgh out. I got the fishing part sewed up. We're good there. What I need is more people to help me with the ancillary stuff. Like, I, built the website myself. I do all of the marketing myself. I do all of the forms myself, all of the appearances, podcasts. I'm doing all of it, and I got a full-time job, got a wife, and I got a toddler. So like...And I fish all the time, so I am taxed. I sleep five hours a night max.

Sherry 29:45

Oh, boy.

Jodi 29:46

So, when you started this, 'cause this is a massive undertaking, you had to have been a little bit afraid. Did you at any moment think, "I'm not doing this. I gotta be out of my mind"?

Fishburgh Outdoors 29:57

There have been times where I wanted to stop doing it, you know what I mean? Because it was a lot of work. I wasn't getting a lot of support. But this is what I do, I consistently bite off more than I can chew. But, this is how I operate, and I don't know any other way. I really don't. It's difficult because I feel like sometimes I care about people more than they care about themselves, I won't give up. I'll give up on myself, but I won't give up on other people.

Sherry 30:27

And I think that's the part that doesn't always get talked about. It's imperfect and those moments of doubt and then just deciding that the people counting on you are worth staying in it for, and that's resilience living inside of thriving. And I think you're showing that you don't have to have it all figured out to be doing both.

Fishburgh Outdoors 30:51

It's a very selfless program. If I were to quit, I'm not quitting on myself, I'd be quitting on kids, and the program, and the environment, and everything else. So that's kinda what keeps me going.

Sherry 31:00

And that connects to, what we talk about using the word thriving in our podcast. And what we mean by that is that it doesn't mean that everything's perfect, and it means staying steady through those hard seasons and growing through the hard stuff. And when I listen to you talk about what Fishburgh does, I hear a form of thriving everywhere. It's layered in there. Do you see it that way?

Fishburgh Outdoors 31:32

It's difficult because I'm a perfectionist. Not to say that I do anything perfect, because I don't think I've ever done anything perfect in my life besides, marry my wife and have my daughter. But people tell me that it's going good, but I always feel like I could be doing so much more. I feel like there's just so many areas that I can improve in, but I try not to beat myself up about it too much. yeah, I guess you could say I would be thriving because, I mean, we serve hundreds, if not a thousand kids a year.

Sherry 32:01

Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 32:01

I think first event was April 25th. It was the draft day weekend. It was the last day of the draft, so they were already telling people, "Don't come into town. Avoid comeing down here were like, "I'm kinda going away that weekend. I don't wanna be in town," this and that. It was April, which most programs aren't starting until May because the weather here can be so unpredictable. I had to take the registration link down a week early because we had over 400 people register.

Sherry 32:35

What?

Fishburgh Outdoors 32:36

Yeah, and then I was getting anxiety about it, 'cause like I said, I got only so many volunteers, and even the ones we have I'm not a giant organization with a bunch of people or a, or a budget or anything.

Sherry 32:45

Yeah, but what does that say about the need?

Fishburgh Outdoors 32:49

Exactly. I'm making these rods in my kitchen myself, you know what I mean? I'll send you videos. I made a social media post trying to get volunteers. It's literally a video of me making the bamboo rods in my dining room, I think, at that point. And so I had to take the registration link down a week early, and you know what happened? People then started calling and emailing me because they couldn't find that date on the registration link. All right?

Sherry 33:14

Oh, see, now that should tell you everything you need to know.

Fishburgh Outdoors 33:18

Fast-forward to April 25th. It was, like, 50 degrees and raining. It was cold, rainy, wet day, and I think we still had over 200 people show up. So

Sherry 33:29

Wow. Wow. That's amazing.

Fishburgh Outdoors 33:32

So you tell me- You tell me if it's thriving.

Sherry 33:36

That's it.

Fishburgh Outdoors 33:39

It's sometimes thriving a little bit more than I have the capacity for, to be honest with you.

Sherry 33:40

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 33:44

People wanna help out. I have people that wanna donate, and I'm like, "The only thing I need you to donate is your time." Because that's ultimately where it comes to. I don't want to provide a poor experience for the families because we're just taxed, we're just overextended. So, what I really ultimately need more than money is I need people.

Sherry 34:04

So that just goes through your volunteer link. Sign up that way, and then you let us know what the needs are.

Fishburgh Outdoors 34:11

Yeah, join the team, and, I reach out to everybody personally. I call them or email them, whichever box they check for their preferred contact. And, fishing is great. If you're a fisherman, you wanna come up and, you know, fish and bait hooks and teach the kids, fantastic. What I need is the help outside of that, you know what I mean? Is the help with the website, and the graphics design, and making the bamboo rods, and doing maintenance on the rods, and transportation, and I get to go to festivals and set up tables and stuff like that all the time. But at the end of the day,

Sherry 34:45

You don't have the time or the people to do it.

Fishburgh Outdoors 34:47

The time. Yeah, exactly. My wife has been extremely supportive, but, I also don't wanna abandon my family because I'm busy taking care of everybody else. So my daughter comes, my wife and daughter come to the event.

Sherry 34:58

Yeah, that's important.

Fishburgh Outdoors 34:59

I also don't wanna overextend them on my journey because while she's supportive, this is my cross to bear.

Sherry 35:06

Make sure you take care of yourself while you're taking care of others.

Beyond The Pond And Bridge City Bass

Sherry 35:10

In the off-season, like after September, do you take a break? Do you give yourself some time to breathe?

Fishburgh Outdoors 35:17

I fish over 300 days a year, so that's when I just start doing more fishing. There's not really much to do the off-season. There will be this year because I'm gonna be working on a lot more non-fishing type stuff. I wanna get some environmental classes together. So I'm gonna partner with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission's Biology Department on that to try to do some hands-on stuff where maybe we get some wildlife in the Frick Environmental Center or the Pittsburgh Zoo and start doing some of the educational programming, not just fishing. Yeah. There's always a couple kids, usually the older kids, who are just really into it. So the fall is, like, arguably the best time of year to go fishing. I usually do some one-on-one and some, like, fishing excursions with them for the most part. So that's what I do, is we'll, stop doing the ones at the lake because the sunfish kind of shut down, but then the big trophy fish down the river really start to get... I start taking some of those kids out one-on-ones and really showing them, "This is is what's in store for you if you decide to stick with this."

Sherry 36:20

To extend the mentorship piece a little bit, they may actually find it rewarding to help you doing some of the things that you're doing in the background, like making the rods and things like that. Did you ever think of trying to extend your mentorship in that way maybe? You know, it gives them more purpose.

Fishburgh Outdoors 36:38

The problem is I have no shortage of ideas. What I have a shortage of is time and energy for execution. So I want to do all of that stuff, but then it's again, it's the planning part is what I'm in need of, it's, like, making sure we're compliant, and, finding places to do this, and getting equipment, and then calling people, and making sure the parents are signing waivers. That stuff is a lot of work. I've ran and owned for profit businesses. This is infinitely more difficult, there's no money being made. I fund most of this out of my paycheck.

Sherry 37:10

Yeah, I know. Which is why we were glad to have some help for this one. We did get a sponsor for this episode. A representative from National Tank and Equipment is making a donation to Fishburgh so I'll forward that onto you after this. But I wanted to mention that. Whatever you need it for to support the program.

Fishburgh Outdoors 37:29

Yeah, it goes a long way.

Sherry 37:31

Well, we're happy to have had you on today. I really believe in what you're doing.

Fishburgh Outdoors 37:35

Get the word out and connect the dots, and, you know, tell people to go to the website and sign up. And They can always email me, phil@fishburgh.com if they got any questions or anything. I'm still a relatively small organization. I answer personally every single phone call, email, text message, Facebook message.

Sherry 37:51

Ah.

Fishburgh Outdoors 37:52

If they really want to see what's going on, Fishburgh Outdoors, just go to our Facebook page. That's where I put the most recent content from the events, and the videos, and reels, and stuff is pretty much all on there. Yeah.

Jodi 38:05

That will be in the show notes too.

Fishburgh Outdoors 38:07

The website's more for signing up and just general inquiries and joining the team. I haven't really had much time to update that with the photos and videos because It's just way harder than to update social media to be honest with you. But yeah, if there's anybody out there who, like, does web design or graphics design or any of that stuff, and you wanna start helping me with the website, by all means. You don't have to be a fisherman. I know exactly what we need. I just don't have the capacity to do it all to be honest.

Jodi 38:32

Thank you for taking the time to talk with us tonight.

Sherry 38:36

For this season, we wanted to close every episode the same way. The show is called This Is It, and it's about the moment that you stop waiting for your life to start and you realize this is it. Have you had that moment?

Fishburgh Outdoors 38:49

I'm working on a proposal called Beyond the Pond, right? Because the pond is great, but unfortunately the kids, they age out of the sunfish at one point. So we have our first Bridge City Bass Club, which will be the second stage of the program, I think that will absolutely be it, and that's gonna probably take place in June, hopefully.

Sherry 39:11

That's awesome. So you're turning potholes to purpose, and the city's lucky to have you. So thank you for being here.

Fishburgh Outdoors 39:18

Thanks for having me.

Sherry 39:20

Yep.

Jodi 39:20

Thank you.

Sherry 39:22

We started this episode talking about the healthy thing you reach for when life gets heavy, the thing that makes you feel calm and lit up at the same time. Phil found his at the edge of a pond, and he's spending his life making sure that other people get to feel it too. One of our listeners, a Yinzer on her own journey, said it best, about fishing. Escape the chaos and intensity of life. I'm able to concentrate on one thing which allows me to enjoy the reminder we don't always see, and there's so much beauty in nature." Whatever yours looks like, fishing, organizing, aggressively tending your garden, music, being there for somebody, go find it. This is it.

The Law Behind Conservation Funding

Sherry 40:17

Hey, since you stuck around, here's something worth knowing. Phil mentioned earlier that part of every fishing equipment sale goes towards conservation. So we dug in, and he was right, and then some. It's called the Dingell-Johnson Act, and it's been running since 1950. And we also found 100% of every fishing license sold in this country goes entirely to conservation too, by law, every dollar. Anglers have been taking care of the waterways long before it was a conversation. Head to our show notes for more on this.