Because of the work of a local Boy Scout turned Eagle Scout, along with several community partners, enrollment may be rivaling that of Boerne ISD in the coming years for schools of fish in Boerne Lake.
J. Barron Cohoon officially completed his Eagle Scout project last month where he, along with several of his fellow Troop 18 Scouts and Boerne Fire Department and parks and recreation department staff, sunk 25 artificial structures to the bottom of Boerne Lake in an effort to grow the fish population of the local hot spot.
An Eagle project is a final project for a Scout to demonstrate leadership in a way that benefits the community and is one of many requirements prior to promotion to the highest rank attainable in the Boy Scouts of America, something only a small percentage of Scouts accomplish.
“For a Scout, it’s your biggest thing,” Cohoon said of Eagle projects. “However, for any member of the community, it (an Eagle project) can be a bench that you just sat on, a table that you ate on or even sometimes, you know, a shed or something that you went under in the rain or a bridge you walked across or a trail that you ran. So, Eagle Scout projects just serve as a way to give back to the community for all the time that Scouting has benefited them.”
When figuring out what his Eagle Scout project would be, Cohoon said he spoke with Boerne Parks Superintendent Donnie Bergmann about what projects need doing. When Cohoon saw the impact this particular project could have on a piece of the Hill Country he is so familiar with and that held so many memories, he knew it was the project for him.
“The history I’ve had with Boerne Lake and being out in nature and fishing with my dad and everything, me and my dad love fly fishing,” Cohoon said. “And so we thought it would be great to be able to give back to that community by doing something for the parks and recreation department.”
In an effort to help grow the fish population and ecology of Boerne Lake, Cohoon built 25 aquatic fish structures of varying size. Fifteen of the structures were made with shallower depths in mind with the tubing running out of the easily identifiable orange Home Depot buckets. For the deeper depths of the lake, Cohoon created 10 fiveto six-foot structures with PVC pipe running out of the buckets and tubing inserted throughout.
While Cohoon said cedar trees and other degradable materials had been used for aquatic structures to encourage ecological growth, he wanted to see structures sunk that offered a longer-lasting solution. He further explained the use of PVC and buckets by saying the cylindrical structure proved to have the greatest chance of sinking without falling over.
“By constructing and placing the habitats in Boerne City Lake, Cohoon created a place in the community that will enhance the fish resource for a long time to come,” Bergmann said.
Cohoon said his goal was to help the fish population of Boerne Lake, which he said has several areas that are nearly barren, by sinking the structures that would provide protected space for fish eggs and attract fish as algae and other food sources begin to grow on the resilient materials.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever fished Boerne Lake,” Cohoon said. “But whenever you go out to fish, you maybe catch one or two fish, and my mission was to try and change that and to change the amount of fish that actually survive in Boerne Lake to try and make it a better place to go fishing.”
While this was Cohoon’s Eagle project, he acknowledged the crucial role his fellow Troop 18 Scouts, the fire department and the parks and recreation department played in seeing it through, noting he didn’t see how the structures could have been sunk without the Boerne Fire Department’s help. Further, he said about 15 Scouts from his troop helped build the structures on the first day of the project, which he said was critical in getting the project done.
“I’m very proud of him,” Cohoon’s mother, 451st District Court Judge Kirsten Cohoon, said. “He worked hard on it. It was a great idea. It took a lot of coming together. So, he got the fire department together with the Scouts, and it’s a really great project that I think will do well for the city of Boerne – for the lake. The city, the fire department, Scouts, I was impressed with how well he was able to get everyone together and lead that project to its conclusion.”
While this was certainly a huge undertaking for Cohoon, requiring about a year of hard work and planning to complete, he said this wasn’t the end of his positive involvement with the community but simply one example.
“It was a really great experience to be able to do something like this for the community,” Cohoon said. “And obviously it’s not going to be the last for the community. I mentioned the fire department. I’m actually a volunteer firefighter with the department. So, I plan on spending more time that I spent toward Boy Scouts over there. Probably getting my EMT license, and overall trying to train myself better and hopefully get to the college of my dreams, which is a service academy.”
“I don’t know if you’ve ever fished Boerne Lake. But whenever you go out to fish, you maybe catch one or two fish, and my mission was to try and change that and to change the amount of fish that actually survive in Boerne Lake to try and make it a better place to go fishing.”
– Eagle Scout J. Barron Cohoon
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