Jacobson Park in Lexington, had a special group fishing its waters yesterday.

Visually impaired veterans had a laid back fishing day with the help of volunteers from Camp Hero and the Veterans Affairs Visual Impairment Services Team or vist.

While fishing is fun for a lot of us, this opportunity means even more to veterans who may not be able to fish on their own anymore due to their disability.

What camp here does is we host vets and first responders for mental health support, using the outdoors as a nexus.

I was in the Navy and I got disabled and medically retired from the Navy.

I then became a police officer in Shepherd's Ville, Kentucky.

I had to be medically retired again.

So I started dealing with mental health issues because I felt like I was losing my purpose, my identity.

Start getting back in the outdoors because I grew up in the outdoors, hunting and fishing and stuff, and I regressed from that in a while to dealing with depression.

So to get back outdoors realized how beneficial was being out in nature.

So I started bringing other vets and first responders that I became friends with out and nature and fellowship being and realize how much of a good thing that was.

So in 2019, my wife and I bought 160 acres in Jackson County, Kentucky, and we started Camp Hero vist What they do is they help with visually impaired veterans transition into everyday life.

And they said a lot of the participants really miss being in the outdoors.

They really miss being able to fish, they really miss being able to hunt since they lost their vision and ask if there's any way we could help with that.

That's absolutely.

There you go.

Well, there is probably been blind and having just a little bit where you want to do more with Jake and then you got to in a process, you're going to have to depend on other people.

So we set up today this fishing program where we have visually impaired veterans out here paired up with our staff and help where they can come out there and they can cast and everything else, you know, because they used to fish before they lost the river.

So far is going good.

I haven't called a fish yet, but I'm working on it.

Well, I'm I'm like I I'm a disabled veteran and I Tara told me about it, and she said something about going fishing.

I'm all for it.

I was all for I'm ready to go.

Until 2011, I didn't have a pet.

Not nobody.

I do.

I collect drug card, whatever, and just take off and no fish.

I went to water.

I did and say, Hey, all the fish go.

It's hard.

They just need someone to spot them, you know, let them know, Hey, you're getting a buddy and hey, go ahead and set the hook.

But they'll still be able to really the fish will still be able to feel it.

They'll still be able to feel fish when they get it and get that excitement that they want since the experience.

People think they can't do it anymore because of the blindness.

And now this show on bass, you can still do what you was doing prior to getting blind.

So I love all them dance, love to, you know, go out and do whatever I need to do and meet other veterans and talk to them.

People like Rocco and his program here outside of Veterans Out, how they get from all of the things he does traveling the world, they're helping.

Yeah, it it can change the way a fighter looks like.

This was the first partnership between Vist and Camp Hero.

The VA says it hopes to partner with Camp Hero more often in the future.