Abel Pushing Volunteer Cleanup

Abel Products is encouraging fly fishers to join its "Gimme Five" initiative to help clean up the angler's environment. "As you leave the stream, as you climb out of your boat or float tube, as you break down your pontoon, as you stop for lunch, as you walk up the beach, as you stow your gear in the trunk, take five – just five minutes – to pick up any litter and leave the area cleaner than you found it," Steve Abel suggests.

Read the full press release in the extended entry.

CAMARILLO, Calif. – In an effort to rid stream banks, beaches, camp grounds and parking areas of litter and debris, Abel Quality Products is sponsoring “Gimme Five,” a yearlong volunteer program in which participants agree to give five minutes back to Mother Nature at the end of each fishing day.
In announcing the volunteer project, Steve Abel wrote, “All it takes is five.
“As you leave the stream, as you climb out of your boat or float tube, as you break down your pontoon, as you stop for lunch, as you walk up the beach, as you stow your gear in the trunk, take five – just five minutes – to pick up any litter and leave the area cleaner than you found it.
“Gina [Abel] and I resolved to do it around our Home Waters on the Bitterroot River in Montana. We don’t care who accidentally dropped the empty leader pack, if either of us see it we’ll pick it up; if we spot a beer bottle cap, we’ll pick it up.
“Filters from snuffed-out cigarettes are rampant on a beach I fish in Baja. I grab as many as I can. Bits and pieces from polystyrene coffee cups, debris from cruise ships, and monofilament line all find their way into my trash bag.
“If we each carry a little trash bag, take five minutes and if we each enlist five fishing friends to take five minutes, it won’t be long before we clean up every fishing access, beach, boat landing, camp ground, parking lot and river bank.
“No government, no mandates, no committees. It’s just us. Just your five friends, our five friends, their five friends and a commitment to do something to make our fishing world a little better than the way we found it.
“Is it a deal? Gimme Five,” he said.
Abel feels that upwards of 1,000,000 anglers – fly, spin, bait or any form of fishing – will participate in the project during 2006 if each person that volunteers enlists five other people.
“This is environmental volunteerism at its best and I truly believe it will work,” said the reel designer and manufacturer.