SPARING THE ROD : FLY-TYING COURSE HELPS GIVE JUVENILE OFFENDERS NEW START.

Byline: BRETT PAULY

With their matching white sweatshirts, county-issue jeans and shaved heads, Raul and Rogelio didn't fit in with the other anglers on the banks of Piru Creek.

Their wading steps were cautious and their casts timid. Clearly they were out of their environment, but its exactly where they wanted to be.

``Right here you forget about the city,'' Raul said. ``Forget all about people pressuring me to do the same thing as before, carjacking, burglary or something else. Now I can say I'd rather go fishing, or just say that to stay away.''

At 15, but hardly boys, Raul and Rogelio are hardened felons. Rogelio is nearing the end of a four-month stint for carjacking at Camp Karl Holton, one of Los Angeles County Probation Department's juvenile facilities. Before his recent release, Raul had spent five months at the camp for stealing a car.

Like other camp residents, who range from petty thieves and drug offenders to rapists and murderers, tying their own flies and going fishing has been an emotional outlet that they confidently say they will call on to stay out of trouble on the outside.

The rate of recidivism may belie their hopes. Many inmates will be back. Some will graduate to higher institutions - California Youth Authority or prison. Accordingly, the measure of success for the camp's fly-tying program is a modest one.

``I'm not going to save the world with this,'' said Deputy Probation Officer Scott Haberman, who co-founded the Holton Anglers project five years ago. ``But maybe it will save one kid, maybe more.

``There's nothing like taking out a hard-core street gang member who acts like he is 30 years old and seeing him squeal like a 10-year-old when they catch a fish. Bottom line, it lets them return to their childhood, a childhood they never had or lost long ago.''

On this day, the skills Rogelio used to craft a mosquito-pattern wet fly paid off. He landed his first fish, a 9-inch stocked rainbow trout. The week before a larger fish snapped his line.

``I'm shocked,'' the Carson teen-ager said between smiles and giggles. ``I was reeling in fast. I didn't want to lose it.''

In fact, Rogelio was so excited he cranked the fish right up to the rod tip; its nose was in the first guide.He cradled the prize for a moment then pitched it back unceremoniously.

``It feels great knowing that I done something and can use it and it works,'' he said. ``We should have saved the fish, showed everybody back there (at camp) . . . or eaten it. Cooked it up in the kitchen or something.''

Haberman has the daunting task of trying to make young criminals feel better about themselves - and others - before they return home.

``They come from neighborhoods where there is no respect,'' he said. ``My goal is to teach them respect by putting them in someone else's neighborhood.''

That neighborhood is Piru Creek. Only a privileged few - those who demonstrate maturity, perform well in school, have steady jobs in camp and are not flight risks - get to go.

Back at the camp, which houses up to 139 felons aged 14 to 18 within the confines of locked gates and 15-foot-high fences in Little Tujunga Canyon, Haberman explained his protocol.

``I do not take idiots,'' he said to a small group of prospective anglers. ``If you screw up, I will never take you outside the gate.''

It takes similar requirements to get into the fly-tying class, offered in a dank camp classroom the first Monday of the month by members of the Sierra Pacific Flyfishers, a San Fernando Valley-based angling club.

``I expect proper behavior. No stupidity. The usual, gentlemen,'' Haberman directed the 10 residents who qualified for the course Monday evening.

There was an uneasy air as instructors and students warmed up to one another. George Chapman, who organizes the club's volunteers, broke the ice as he showed one inmate the whip finish - a difficult knot-tying procedure - on a beadhead nymph.

``This is an important step, and I've seen grown men cry trying to do this,'' he said. After several unsuccessful attempts, his pupil nailed it.

That the fly-tiers are such quick learners comes as a surprise to Haberman, who hovers around them like a watchful father and wields handcuffs and a walkie-talkie for security.

``Scholastically, some of these kids are at fourth-grade level,'' he said. ``To have them focus and concentrate on detailed instruction, which is something they may not be able to do in a regular classroom, is an achievement.''

Charles, 16, of Los Angeles, in for discharging a firearm and previously for terrorist threats and carrying a concealed weapon, proudly displayed his first fly - a gold-ribbed hare's ear.

``I don't know what it'll catch, probably a piranha,'' said Charles, who until this evening thought a fishing fly was a live insect attached to a hook. He looks forward to using his newfound skills on the outside.

``There ain't gonna be no more busts,'' he said. ``I'm changing. I'll still be in my gang; once you're in you can never get out. But you can be in a gang and not gang-bang. Tying flies will give me something to do in my spare time. That's usually when I get into trouble, in my spare time.''

When they are released, inmates from the fly-tying program are provided with enough donated gear to continue their hobby, lists of urban lakes and local fishing clubs and a handshake.

``Maybe that is the only memory they will walk away with, but maybe that will transcend into positive action on their part further down the road.''

Maybes are all Haberman can bank on.

MEMO: Outdoors Editor Brett Pauly's column appears Thursdays in the Daily News.

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3 Photos

Photo: (1-2-3--color) At top, Deputy Probation Officer S cott Haberman, right, assists 15-year-old Rogelio, a Camp Holton inmate, with his first catch. Above, 16-year-old Charles, another resident, learns to tie his first fly during a monthly program at the camp. At right is the final result of Charles' effort.