A Special Thrill in Southern Oregon
About 20 miles outside of Ashland, Oregon, well up in the hills, is one of the most beautiful lakes in the Northwest. It called Hyatt Lake and it is the site of our Southern Oregon CAST event. The event, hosted by the Bureau of Reclamation, was held on August 19, 2006 and hosted 50 special needs kids from the surrounding area.
The view on and around the lake is spectacular, with Osprey, circling overhead looking for a meal. Another attribute of the lake is that it is no wake. That means no waterskiing and no wave runners. If you are a fisherman, this means pure heaven on the water. And the local fisherman, especially the members of the Crater Bass Club, took full advantage of this to get their special fisherman easily across the lake and on the fish. Almost every child caught at least one fish, and most more than one, including one child with about a 3 pound largemouth bass.
Another aspect that is unique to this event is that many of the participants come on Friday and campout for the whole weekend. Many of these kids are from the area Special Olympics program and use this for a total weekend getaway. It is very neat to see some of these kids fish late into the night off the shore hours after the official event is done. And then get up bright and early the next morning and do it some more.
The whole community, all the way from Medford to Ashland gets involved with this event; making it one of the more community involved events that CAST does. We want to thank all of these individuals, agencies, and businesses (please see list on this page) that give of their time and of themselves to help all of these kids Catch A Special Thrill.
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