BOERNE – A YouTube influencer chronicling his outdoor adventures including cleaning up River Road Park is encouraging more young people to pitch in and help beautify natural areas.
Hudson Burell’s “Hudson’s Fishing Adventures”is showcasing his appreciation for nature and his efforts to keep aquatic habitats free from litter and pollution.
“As the generations go on, (the trash is) just slowly getting more and more,” he said. “They’re getting filthy and people don’t care as much. So, I’ve always tried my best to clean them up and make sure that I never litter.”
Hudson’s digital series is teaching his peers to lend a hand keeping the outdoors picked up.
However, the teen also spends plenty of time fishing rivers and biking trails during his show.
“My grandad has always been a huge fisherman as well,” Hudson said. “Then my dad kind of picked it up from him. Then, it’s just kind of like gone along. I started off just loving fishing, which is still probably the thing I love most about being outside.”
Hudson, who is nearly 15, has been casting lines for almost a decade, falling in love with the pastime at just 5.
As Hudson has been dropping lures and picking up trash across the Hill Country, his mother, Tristin Burell, said the family has always practiced litter cleanup on their journeys through natural areas.
“We home-school. So, everything is a teachable moment,” Burell said. “When (Hudson) and his sister were 4 and 6 and were just going over multiplication tables and stuff, we would sometimes go for a walk. And I would give each of them a plastic bag, and I would buy them the fun little plastic claws, and we would walk around the neighborhood and do our multiplication tables but pick up litter while we were doing it.”
She added, “It’s always just been natural to us.”
Burell said her son has gone above and beyond his parents’ expectations, and she noted his immense compassion for animals — especially those living in and around bodies of water.
Recently, Hudson received negative feedback when he posted a video on his rapidly growing You-Tube channel after he cut down a lure abandoned by fellow fisherman at River Road Park.
When he couldn’t get the line out of a tree, some viewers accused him of littering.
That’s not the message Hudson is promoting, which is in direct opposition to his mission.
Hudson’s mother recalled how dismayed Hudson felt.
So, to make sure his audience knew his true aims, he returned to River Road Park with a garbage bag and began picking up every piece of litter he could find.
He plucked abandoned sneakers from a drainage pipe in the river, tossed all kinds of litter and lures left by visitors into the rubbish receptacle and even managed to cut down the line that left a bad taste in some viewers’ mouths.
Passersby can be heard in the video thanking the teen for his efforts.
In the end, Hudson’s message to his peers was clear.
“Always make sure that you’re cleaning up your own trash and disposing of it properly, throwing it in garbage cans or keeping it until you get home and throwing it away or recycling it,” Hudson said. “I understand you don’t always have a garbage bag to clean up the whole park, but if you walk past a bottle cap or fishing line or anything you could very easily pick up or put in your pocket, it’s just one less thing that’s going to be out in the river system or the woods or wherever you are.”
The teenager said he’s not really sure where his motivation originates.
“Honestly, I don’t know where that started from,” Hudson said of his goal to restore the natural balance. “It honestly just makes me sad. I always think back to the ‘60s and ‘70s when my granddad would fish. (I think) about how beautiful all the waterways were.”
Anyone interested in following Hudson’s fishing feats can check out his YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/ channel/UC2k4Ths3XVNmZuU0_ PKQsCg or by visiting his blog at https:// hudsonsfishingadventures. com.
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