Working to protect nature is never easy.

When outside in the rain and snow, sometimes it’s tempting to pack up and call it quits.

”You have half a mind to just leave, but you’re there for a reason and you’ve got to finish,” says 14-year-old Leslie Hunt of Bend, a member of the 4-H Castaways Sportfishing Club. ”It’s a whole team thing. We’re there as a group and we won’t leave until it’s done.”

Members of the Castaways have worked tirelessly during the last five years, in all conditions, to salvage fish, improve habitat and conduct surveys.

The club, which includes Central Oregon youngsters ages 12 to 18, will be recognized for its fishery stewardship accomplishments in the winter edition (published Jan. 1) of Trout magazine, a publication of the national fish conservation organization Trout Unlimited.

Trout Unlimited’s mission is much the same as the Castaways’: to conserve, protect, and restore North America’s trout and salmon fisheries and their watersheds.

While the Castaways may have just a small hand in that, the group’s effect on Central Oregon fish habitat has not gone unnoticed.

Bill Dilworth of Bend helped start the club six years ago, through the Oregon State University-Deschutes County extension service. Before long, the Castaways had an annual event to call their own: the Tumalo Creek Fish Salvage.

One day five years ago, Dilworth, now 64, was walking along the Tumalo Feed Canal west of Bend when he saw a fish stranded in the canal. He called members of the Castaways and they showed up with waders and flashlights on a cold October night.

”We saved about a thousand fish that first time,” Dilworth recalls.

Each spring, fish swim into the irrigation canal when water is diverted from Tumalo Creek. The fish become stranded in the canal when it is closed off each fall and the water is diverted back into the creek.

To save the trout, the Castaways net the fish, place them in buckets of stream water, then tote the buckets down to Tumalo Creek to release the fish back into their native stream. Salvaged species include brown trout, brook trout, rainbow trout, native redband rainbow trout and whitefish.

During the last five years, thousands of fish have been rescued, according to Dilworth.

The Tumalo Irrigation District has plans to place a screen on the canal in the near future. But until then, the Castaways will continue saving the fish.

”It’s important for us to learn that we’re part of fishing,” says Castaways member Haley Hunt, 18, of Bend. ”It doesn’t just affect the fish, it affects the environment and what we’re taking out of it.”

The Castaways obtained permits from the ODFW and the Tumalo Irrigation District to continue the annual fish salvage.

But one other thing they needed was funding, as evidenced by the freezing legs and feet of the kids.

”We started out wading in tennis shoes,” Dilworth says.

Since then, the 4-H group received grants from the Central Oregon Environmental Center to purchase waders and nets. The Castaways also get funding from local businessman Doug Jones, and from Don Nelson, a Trout Unlimited member and owner of River City fly shop in Beaverton.

Another endeavor of the Castaways has been riparian planting along stretches of the Deschutes River, including the Water Wonderland neighborhood south of Sunriver and the Meadow Picnic Area just west of Bend. Castaway members and their families and friends have planted sedges, willows and pine trees on more than 200 yards of eroded areas.

And Dilworth says they always leave the sites cleaner than when they arrived.

”We become better fishermen,” says Bend resident and Castaways member Kody Ostrander, 17. ”We know more about the community and how to keep it clean.”

During the past two summers, the 4-H Club has also helped the ODFW conduct creel counts at Big Lava Lake (located about 40 miles southwest of Bend). The Castaways interviewed anglers and gathered statistics to track fish-planting results at the lake, helping to further the ODFW’s studies.

Members of the 4-H Club also submit exhibits and share their knowledge at the Deschutes County and Oregon State fairs. The youngsters make their own fly rods and flies, tie knots and create exhibits of aquatic ecology and entomology.

The Castaways also make time for fishing trips together, sometimes showing the ultimate dedication as anglers.

”One time I was making a fly and I ran out of deer hair to make it,” recalls 13-year-old Michael Williams of Sisters. ”So I cut off a piece of my own hair – and I caught a brown trout.”

After six years, Dilworth stepped down recently as leader of the club, handing over his role to Roselee Ostrander, Kody’s mother.

Dilworth will remain an assistant, and he urges other interested adults to form more 4-H sportfishing clubs, with which the youth members of the original group could help.

”These kids have all the fundamentals, and they could help teach the other kids,” Dilworth says.

For more information on starting a 4-H fishery stewardship club, contact the OSU-Deschutes County extension service in Redmond at 548-6088.