A recent essay noted that “movies have the potential to inspire social change by shedding light on important issues.”

When Norman Maclean’s 1976 novella “A River Runs Through It” became a 1992 movie hit, Americans learned that, for some, “there is no clear line between religion and fly fishing.”

Today, thanks to the Netflix release of a 2022 movie based on Stephen Camelio’s screenplay, “Mending the Line,” America is learning that fly fishing can play an important role in the physical and emotional healing of disabled veterans – true social change.

Upon its streaming release last month, “Mending the Line” was Netflix’ most watched movie. It has also become a major recruiting tool for Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing Inc. (PHW), which helps disabled veterans cope with physical and emotional damage and builds camaraderie many had lost when they left the military.

Retired Navy Captain Ed Nicholson had no idea that the idea he birthed while recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 2005 would grow to serve 65,000 veterans just since 2012, including women vets who have just formed a PHW offshoot called Women on the Fly.

Nicholson, visibly moved by seeing “so many young people with devastating injuries, people in their twenties with missing limbs, deep psychological problems, and other terrible wounds,” won permission to let recovering veterans join him in fly casting on a hospital laws “perfect for a bit of fly fishing.”

That led to Nicholson taking patients on day trips to nearby lakes and streams. “It just........

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