Derby Day – May 4, 2024 in Warner NH
By Karinne Heise
All over the country this past May 4th, people spent their afternoons celebrating the Derby – wearing outlandish hats, singing “My Old Kentucky Home,” rooting for racehorses at Churchill Downs, maybe even enjoying a mint julep or two. But in Warner, NH, the Derby fun and games on May 4th began right after sunrise, with kids of all ages lining up to register for the town’s annual Children’s Fishing Derby.
For over 60 years, Warner Fish & Game Club has hosted a fishing derby at Children’s Brook, a half mile stretch of Willow Brook along Pumpkin Hill Road where only kids under the age of 16 are allowed to fish. Thanks to the Warren family and the Town of Warner, Five Rivers holds a conservation easement on this lovely stretch of forested brook, thereby helping to maintain this longtime town tradition. Generous local businesses also help the club buy hundreds of fish to stock the stream. NH Fish & Game then contributes a matching number of trout from state hatcheries, thereby doubling a young angler’s chance of catching a fish at the derby.
“Yay, I’m happy!” exclaimed Sophia Heine after reeling in her first fish. As one of the older anglers, Sophia had traipsed upstream to cast her worm-baited hook in slower-moving waters above a beaver dam. Fifteen-year-old Ryan Dabrowski also had good luck in that section of stream, happily catching his five-fish limit before his brother Chris did. Nostalgic about his last year of eligibility, Ryan enthusiastically shared what he has learned from derby fishing: “Patience!”
Downstream from the dam, the brook riffles between banks of moss-covered rocks and overarching trees, which keep the water cool for trout. A good number of the 88 children competing this year found lucky fishing spots along the shaded streambanks. As Kevin, the NH Fish & Game warden on site, noted, “The Warner Derby takes place on an actual brook, which makes this one cool and different.”
Further downstream, beneath the bridge by the Warner Fish & Game clubhouse is Charlie’s Pool, reserved for the youngest children. According to a club member, “The bridge is the best place to watch.” And, sure enough, just ten minutes after the derby started, witnesses cheered as a young tyke, with a little help from his father, caught the first fish.
Many of the onlookers were once contestants themselves. Tim Foley remembered winning a red tackle box at a derby in the 1980s. “I still have it,” he said. As one of the club directors, Tim also observed that the derby enhances the sense of community in Warner. “No matter what their political leanings are, people come together…the whole town comes together for it.”
Older generations rally to provide an opportunity for children to appreciate the outdoors, to enjoy fishing with friends and family, and to feel pride in developing a new skill. Sometimes it was hard to tell who was having more fun, the kids grinning while holding up the fish they caught or the adults happily handing out prizes and, in the words of club president Dennis Gilman, “watching the look on the kids’ faces when they catch one.”
