Project Healing Waters Fishing Ohrbach Lake William H. Pouch Scout Camp

I volunteer for Project Healing Waters.  It is a program that takes disabled soldiers
and teaches them the sport of fly fishing.  As a result of the September 11th, 2001 attack on the World
Trade Center, I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  I can identify with the issues that my friends have; so I try to help them.

Ohrbach Lake is one of the lakes that are unknown to most New York City Dwellers.  We took
almost thirty, many first timers, to Staten Island's Pouch Boy Scout Camp to teach them the sport of fly fishing.  It was a day filled with a ride on the Staten Island Ferry and catching panfish in this pristine lake.

The weather could not have been better

This lake is fish by permit only but The Boy Scouts welcomed us with open arms.  whether they,
the veterans, were learning how to tie fly fishing knots or how to roll casts a nine foot fly rod, it
was a fun day.

Fly Fishing from the canoe launch.

Everyone caught fish

We plan to return soon.

MISSION STATEMENT

Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc. is dedicated to the physical and emotional rehabilitation of disabled active military service personnel and disabled veterans through fly fishing and associated activities including education and outings.

The 65-year-old Lake Ohrbach covers approximately 17 acres of the 143-acre Pouch Camp facility, which is actually an entity that is separate from the surrounding Greenbelt.

Formerly Flagg Pond, the lake was renamed when the now-defunct Ohrbach's department store funded a man-made dam in the early 1940s.

The blockage allowed the flow from adjacent ponds -- Hourglass, Pump House and Long, to name a few -- to turn the shallow swimming hole into a body of water with some real body to it.

On the outskirts, the lake consistently runs from 3 to 7 feet deep, but averages out anywhere from 7 to 11 near the middle. The lowest trench bottoms out at about 16 feet.

Fishing is the main attraction here with bass, pickerels, catfish, freshwater eels, crappies and sunfish swimming beneath the surface. And the floating docks provide an ideal spot for 125 prospective anglers.

Why that amount? Because the Greater New York Councils of the Boy Scouts of America only make that many permits available to fisherman prior to the season.