Members of the Narragansett chapter of Trout Unlimited gathered along the banks of the Wood River for their May meeting, the first without their president, Lawson M. Cary Jr., who died last weekend. He was 69.

Several members of the group were wearing hats or patches of the Wood River Fly Fishing Club, an informal group that also had Cary as president. The club meets for monthly suppers. "It's like a bowling club that doesn't bowl," said Bill Beebe, a member of both groups.

Beebe said that among all the plaques and tributes at the funeral home last Wednesday, he will always remember the photo of Cary standing in a stream and holding a tiny brook trout he had just caught. The angler and consummate conservationist was beaming. "It wasn't the size of the fish that mattered," Beebe said. "It was a healthy, native brook trout."

Brook trout in cold-water streams are like canaries in mines.

"If the brook trout are right, then the water is right," said Jim Rubovits, who fished with Cary and called him "The Commissioner of Brook Trout."

"It was such a passion for him," Rubovits said. "He spent a great deal of time in the water, but not fishing. He did water sampling, recorded stream flows, worked with URI on a project to measure every culvert in the Wood-Pawcatuck [River] watershed. Hopefully, there will be some follow-up to identify which of those culverts can be cleaned up so the brook trout will be able to migrate."

"Lawson was a force for conservation," said Rick Mitchell. "He was the real deal. … He was concerned with the geology and ecology of forests and rivers and streams, not just a guy who liked to tie flies and catch fish."

Several of the Trout Unlimited members gathered at the Quonset hut on Route 165 Thursday evening spoke of Cary's ability to inspire others to volunteer their time.

This weekend, many of them are working with survivors of breast cancer who are learning to fly fish as part of their recovery. It was Cary who got his friends involved with the Healing Co-op at Bob Buonanno's Deer Creek Farm in Foster.

He also got Trout Unlimited to "adopt" a two-mile stretch of Route 165, said Roger Earle.

"He would get all these late- and middle-age guys to pick up roadside litter," Mitchell said.

Cary was a champion of clean water, said Dan Beltrami. In 2005, the Rhode Island Rivers Council named Cary a river hero.

"That was a good way to describe," said Rubovits. "A river hero."

Stripers striking

Schools of baitfish have moved into Ninigret Pond, says Ryan Sansoucy, skipper of the charter service Hush Fly Fishing.

With the bait have come some big bass. The largest fish that his clients have landed were in the 37- to 38-inch class, and the stripers have been "super-fat," he says. Fish in the 40-pound class have also taken flies, but the big bass have snapper leaders.

Bass biting

Anthony Palumbo of Cranston and a friend fished Stump Pond in Smithfield on Thursday and caught 25 bass on Wacky Worms.

"The water temperature was about 70 degrees," he said. "We didn't see many bass on beds, so I believe they are done with the spawn. Most fish were in the 1-pound range, but there were a few 2-pounders. This was all in the daytime from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m."

tmeade@projo.com