Blog 2 - Summer Mentorship

Senior Project Hours

1. List the contact name, phone number, and organization of the person with whom you volunteered.

• Contact Name: Delbert Nuñez
• Phone Number: 626-392-7803
• Organization: California Department of Fish and Game

2. What qualified this person as an expert in your topic choice?     

• Delbert has over 40 years of experience with Sport Fishing.
• He has been a licensed angler for over 30 years.
• He is currently involved with the California Department of Fish and Game.

3. List three questions for further exploration now that you've completed your summer hours.   

• How can I become the best Sport Fisherman I can possibly be?
• How many different style can you sport fish?
• Does sport fishing help increase the population of fish species?

4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

• When I first came into this topic, I had just seen fishing as a hobby that was designed basically around catching fish and throwing them back, then repeating the process. But, as my summer went on, and as I continued to learn about Sport Fishing with my mentor, it started to become more of a spiritual connection instead of a hobby. I started to realize that there was more to fishing than just trying  to catch a fish, in fact, catching a fish was just a bonus. This helped me become an even better fisherman because I started to feel a connection with water and the living beasts that rule the underwater world which made me truly respect them. Whenever I was around or in the water, I was in their territory and had to respect them for it, so I had to be even smarter than they really were and trick them into a hard fighting battle where I could net and release them, or they could snap the line and break my heart. But at the end of the day, you'll learn from your mistakes, even the best fisherman in the world learn new things every time they go fishing, but it's how you put these new answers into effect. So in the end, I learned  how to truly connect with the sport of fishing which made me ten times a better angler.

5. What is your senior project topic going to be?  How did mentorship help you make your decision?  Please explain.

• My senior topic is going to be "Sport Fishing"
• My father who is my mentor helped me to decide to pick this topic as my senior project topic because ever since I was a child, he always influenced me by taking me fishing and teaching me the ways of fishing. But over this summer, we really dug deep into sport fishing, and he told me to pick something that I really want to know and connect with because I'm going to have to spend my entire senior year on that topic. So, I really thought about it and I wasn't one hundred percent sure that I wanted it to be sport fishing, but one morning my father spoke with me and really helped me connect with sport fishing, suddenly this world of colors and things I've never seen nor felt before just hit me and that was when I knew that I really wanted to do my senior topic on Sport Fishing.

Blog 1 – Senior Final Lesson/Interview Reflection

1. What three lessons were most helpful for you to see, and why?

• The first lesson that was one of the most helpful for me to see was Coaching Hockey by Slade Suzuki. I learned very important information about coaching players which relates to fishing to me because when you are fishing, you are sort of coaching the fish to bite and to come in towards you to reel it in so watching Slade's presentation helped a lot.

• The next lesson that helped was Dog Training presented by Peter Steinwald which gave me an idea of how to work with animals and how to train them or get them to cooperate which you in any situation. 

• The last lesson that was very helpful to me was Fitness which really gave me a good idea on how to healthy so that I can perform to my full capability throughout the day in any sort of activity.

2. List one thing that you learned about the senior project in interviews that will help you get off to a good start?

• In all honesty, I wasn't able to interview the seniors because I was pulled out of school early that day, so I missed out on the opportunity to learn valuable information.

3. What topic(s) are you considering, and why?

• I have one topic taken into consideration that I want to do former which is sport fishing. The reason why I want to do this is because fishing has been with me since I was 2 years old and the passion I have for fishing has only grown. So, I'd like to journey off to learn all about this wonderful sport that there is to know so I can teach my classmates, teachers, and peers about what a wonderful sport this is so they can see the true beauty in just some string and a pole.

4. What EQ do you think might be interesting to consider in guiding a project like this? (Please don't worry about any sort of formula...we want this question to come from your genuine interest).

• I have roughly came up with this EQ over the week, "What's the most efficient way to have a fun time fishing while being conservative to the environment's species?" 

• I came up with this EQ to teach the student how to have a fun time because there are almost an infinite amount of things you can do while fishing to make things interesting. Im approaching that question because the first thing that majority of people say about fishing is that it's boring or they can't catch anything. Then, I approached the conservative side because a lot of people complain about a decline in fish species, but their are way to actually increase their population.

5. What are some ideas you have about finding summer mentorship?

• I have several ideas for mentorship starting off with my father who is a professional fisherman and fishing guide that I can mentor with. My other idea is to mentor with a captain on a commercial fishing vessel so that I can learn as much as possible while at sea.