By Claire Walla

“There’s nothing more special than a kid catching his own fish,” said Shane Dyckman. “That is just priceless.”
Dyckman, a fishing enthusiast and the owner and founder of Flying Point Surf School in Southampton, has made a career of being out on the water. For the last 10 years he’s spent his summers teaching kids how to catch waves in the waters off Southampton shores.
Now he’s expanding his aquatic repertoire to include rods and reels.
This week, he and his business partners, fellow fisherman Jamie Davis and his wife Ava Locks, officially unveiled Fish Camp. Advertised as a three-hour class for anyone ages six to 60, Fish Camp is available seven days a week for a whole host of angling pursuits. For $125, participants will be able to take-part in any variety of open-water activities, from bottom fishing and fly fishing to crabbing and clamming. Dyckman added that Fish Camp can even include opportunities to snorkel with the sea life. A self-proclaimed expert in all aspects of the sport, Dyckman said he’s game to delve into it all.
“It’s an alternative to, say, getting a day-boat out of Hampton Bays,” he explained, adding that “a day-boat is usually crowded with a bunch of guys and then your other alternative out here is renting a sport boat out of Montauk, which leaves at 5 a.m. and costs about $1,000.”
Dyckman continued, “All’s you have to do is show-up with some sunblock and excitement, and we’ll handle it from there.”
Shane Dyckman grew up on the water. And you can tell. The tow-headed Southampton native whose skin is the color of coffee sits at a picnic table where he runs his surf school — young people in bathing suits wash wetsuits and store surfboards in the background, tidying up after a morning lesson. Dyckman seems at ease, and talks about fishing with just as much [confidence].
“My father owned a marina in East Moriches, so I’ve had my own boat since I was eight-years old,” he noted. “I’ve been fishing from that age on.”
Dyckman is already able to rattle off surf conditions, fish species and cleaning techniques — information that will be part of the camp’s educational component — with the familiarity of someone who does this for a living.
He knows, for example, that when there’s an influx of cinder worm in the water for fish to feast on (a phenomenon that was prevalent just last month) only fly fisherman have any luck getting bites. The synthetic flies they use instead of bait apparently resemble the cinder worm. He knows when and even what time of day to use a lead bucktail, a pencil popper or a swimming plug. He also knows that this month, fishing hopefuls can expect to chase bluefish, striped bass, fluke and porgies.
But, perhaps most importantly, he knows that you can never predict exactly what you’re going to get. If the bluefish or striped bass aren’t biting, Dyckman said the crew will pull up to rock beds to fish for porgies, or else find a sand bar and go clamming.
“There’s always something,” he said.
“Basically, our business is around fun,” he added. “Everything that we grew up doing, we’re now letting everyone have those same experiences.”
For Locks, who worked for The Green School and is in the process of getting her masters in special education, giving participants something they can take away from their day on the water is key.
While doing research for her masters program, Locks said she asked a classroom of students at the Springs School how many of them had ever been to the water.
“Three quarters of the class had never been on or in the water,” she said. “Children today are so geared toward building resumes; they spend their summers doing all of these things that we didn’t grow up doing,” Locks continued. Like Dyckman and her husband (who also grew up in Southampton), Locks said she grew up fishing with her Dad on the Jersey Shore.
“There’s this nature deficit piece,” she added. “Kids aren’t outdoors. They’re watching it on TV,” she explained, referencing reality shows like “Deadliest Catch,” which follows commercial fishermen as they hunt big game fish on the open seas. “What Shane’s offering are the basics.”
In addition, Locks is working to foster relationships with places like the Riverhead Foundation, to build programs about preservation. And she has already reached out to Sag Harbor resident Brian Halweil, publisher of Edible East End, to add a cooking portion to the fishing experience.
Halweil said he’ll give the Fish Camp crew a list of slow-food chefs in the area who might be willing to give cooking demonstrations to Fish Camp participants.
“I’ve gotta assume that if you catch a fish you’re going to want to eat it,” Halweil said. “So to teach someone how to fish without teaching them how to clean and preserve and store the fish seems like you’re doing them a disservice,” he added. “The eating of the fish gives you a whole respect for the experience and allows you to share the experience with people who weren’t there.”
Halweil expressed enthusiasm for the Fish Camp and added that it fits in nicely with slow-food trends that have cropped up around the country and seem particularly popular here on the East End.
“Who would have thought that you would have to teach people this anymore? But, that kind of inter-generational or community connection doesn’t exist anymore.”
The value of a program that teaches something as basic as fishing, he added, is that participants “see it as a valuable skill — once they learn it they can use it for the rest of their lives.”
The goal with fish camp is to actually make it year-round, according to Dyckman and Locks. Though active fishing months in these waters are April through the end of November, Dyckman expressed interest in opening up the Camp for international fishing in the winter. He’s already fished Costa Rica, the Caribbean, Peru and the Galapagos Islands, which he described as “God’s fish tank.”
However, he emphasized that the benefits are just as potent close to home.
“You leave that dock, and you leave the world behind. When you come out onto the water, you’re there; you’re not worried about your appointment in the morning, you’re not worried about whatever else is on your mind,” Dyckman said. “Just being out on the water, you’ve already won.”

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