While most of us are busy wrapping holiday gifts, a group of fledgling fly anglers are learning to wrap guides on rods at the VA Pittsburgh Health Care System's H. J. Heinz III Progressive Care Center in Aspinwall.

They are charter members of the Pittsburgh program of Project Healing Waters, a national movement to help wounded and disabled active-duty military personnel and veterans through fly fishing and related activities, such as fly-tying and rod-building.

"I'm game for anything!" said Mike Michalek of Shaler, one of nine men to sign up for the Pittsburgh program so far. A 22-year Navy veteran who served in Vietnam, Michalek lost both legs as a result of exposure to Agent Orange and is learning to walk on prosthetics.

"I've fished the river. I taught my nieces and nephews to fish the river. But I've never fly fished and I'd like to learn," he said. "The word 'can't' isn't in my dictionary."

Ron Weiss of The Hook and Hackle Company in Homestead started the local Healing Waters program last month with John Pinigis, an avid angler and recreational therapy assistant at the VA. Weiss is providing rod kits and instruction. He has supported Healing Waters since its inception in 2003 at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., through fundraising and donating or selling fishing supplies at cost for distribution to 34 programs in 50 states. A non-profit, Healing Waters is sponsored nationally by the Federation of Fly Fishers, with support from Trout Unlimited and private donors.

Weiss thought it was time Pittsburgh had a program, too.

"We live in the best country on Earth," he said. "How can we not do all we can to help our military veterans?"

Weiss said he has seen lives transformed by Healing Waters, when the simple act of working at a vise or casting a line becomes an exercise in newfound optimism.

"You know how you feel when you tie a nice fly, how it takes you outside yourself?" he said. "For these guys, it's three notches above that. These are wounded and injured vets and when they sit down to tie a Wooly Bugger, they talk about how good it feels, how much it boosts their self-esteem. To hear them express that just blows you away."

Project Healing Waters was founded by retired Navy captain and angler Ed Nicholson. While recovering from surgery at Water Reed, Nicholson, a Vietnam vet, observed wounded soldiers from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and thought they might benefit from time on the water. Outings led to in-hospital fly tying and, more recently, rod building. Healing Waters is sponsoring a rod-building contest, with separate categories for veterans with hand injuries or prosthetic hands and those with normal hand function. The winners in each will receive an expense-paid trip to the stream of their choice.

According to Nicholson, the program works because it is ongoing.

"A lot of groups will take veterans out for the day once a year, and there's nothing wrong with that. But Healing Waters is different," he said. "Our success is in the committed relationships we build between veterans, volunteers and hospital staffs, who are getting together week after week, month after month, year after year."

"More than anything," he said, "veterans want to connect. We give them a way to do that."

Healing Waters national trustee Carole Katz of Santa Ana, Cal., said that in addition to providing physical therapy, the program helps heal the less visible scars of war.

"Many veterans have difficulty resuming their former lives," she said. "Their families, friends or employers are eager for them to take up where they left off as though nothing had happened. For some of them, this is impossible whether because of post-traumatic stress disorder or something else. Those with PTSD or other mental disabilities may benefit from learning a new sport, the excitement of a catch, getting outdoors for some physical activity or the camaraderie of fly fishing.

"We know one man in a wheelchair who was in such a hurry to get down to the stream to fish, he wrapped his torso with a garbage bag and slid down the bank," she said. "I've seen people wheel their chairs right up into the water."

Rick Trowbridge was introduced to Healing Waters at Ft. Leonard Wood Army Hospital in Missouri, after his second tour of duty in Iraq. He was angry and depressed and recovering from neurological damage to his right side.

He learned to tie flies, then went on a outing to the White River.

"It did so much for me personally, for my outlook and attitude and my hand problems, I began volunteering," said Trowbridge, 38, who lives in Memphis, Tenn. and is now Healing Waters' southern coordinator. "I know of two soldiers who were contemplating suicide who, when we took them fishing, said they could start to see a future."

Although the camaraderie is great, he said, "there's something special about standing in a river, with the water running past and the wind blowing in the trees and the birds singing, holding a rod gifted you by someone who cared enough to get you out there, and you land a fish on a fly you tied yourself. There's no feeling in the world like it."

Weiss and Pinigis are planning their group's first trout-fishing outing in 2009. For some, it will be a return to an activity they enjoyed at another time in their lives; for others, it will be a new adventure.

"Either way," Pinigis said, "it's something for them to look forward to, and they'll be using equipment they made themselves."

Project Healing Waters meets twice a month at the Aspinwall VA hospital. Folks interested in supporting the program should contact Weiss at ron@hookhack.com or by visiting www.hookhack.com. For more on Project Healing Waters national, go to www.projecthealingwaters.org.