BETHEL — Men with a passion for getting children and families involved in river fishing and recreation shared their endeavors Tuesday at the Androscoggin River Watershed Conference.

Scott Stone of Bethel is a trout angler. He also owns Schiavi Homes in Bethel and is president of the Upper Andro Anglers Alliance.

Stone wants to use fishing to create an economy in Bethel and involve youth.

“If we can create this culture with our kids, as they get older, they’re going to see opportunities,” he said. “It’s not the paper mills that are going to sustain us anymore.”

To get youth involved, he said the alliance partnered last year with the University of Maine’s Bryant Pond 4H Camp and Learning Center in Woodstock and created a river stewardship program for the upper Androscoggin River.

Ryder Scott, program director for the camp, ran the pilot program. He hired a University of Maine zoology major as an intern who did on-river stewardship work on mornings and served as a biology/camp counselor on afternoons.

“That put the kids on the river doing research, learning research, learning entomology, learning about the river, learning how important the tributaries are, and just having a greater understanding about fishing,” Stone said.

The children, ages 8 to 18, also learned about the economic impact of habitat conservation and fishing. Additionally, they conducted 300 hours of on-river research for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

“So they start to understand how important it is that we take care of our resources and what it means to us not just from a feel-good perspective and our ability to catch fish, but what it means ultimately to our economy if we do the right thing,” Stone said.

Scott envisions the stewardship program helping to make the upper Androscoggin a destination for trout fishing, sustainable tourism and economic development for the Bethel area and western Oxford County.

To continue the program this year, Scott said community support is needed, both financially and with other types of resources like training and education.

“The scope of what we’re doing, we could go in so many different directions just with this one program,” Stone said.

“It reaches kids that don’t often do well in the traditional school setting, and if we can take care of those kids, what does that do to our economy?” he asked. “If we can inspire those kids to now have connection in something that is hands-on, all of a sudden learning has a new meaning to them. This is such a positive thing … it’s just incredible.”

One future opportunity could be a business that manufactures drift boats — flat-keeled watercraft that are rowed and are ideal for the wide river.

The Androscoggin “is an incredible resource and we have all kinds of opportunities,” Stone said.

Jonathan Labonte, executive director of the Androscoggin Land Trust, expounded on those opportunities with the trust’s efforts on the lower Androscoggin from Canton to Durham.

They are currently working with the National Park Service’s Rivers and Trails Program to build a system of trails along a nearly 3-mile stretch of the Androscoggin, connecting Jay and Livermore Falls.

Schools are involved to create the trail system as a community asset for economic development.

Labonte said that last year, the trust got 21 seventh- and eighth-graders from Auburn summer camps on the river with Bethel outfitter Jeff Parsons.

Parsons helped them overcome fears that the river was still too polluted to use. It’s not, Labonte said.

He sees river recreation as a means to connect people to the trust’s work through partnerships with organizations such as the Androscoggin River Watershed Council’s Source to the Sea Trek and Rumford Group Homes.

“If a group like the Watershed Council can partner with the Trust and get kids out on the river, it’s a win,” Labonte said.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com