First Catch
Teaching today’s children to fish is far from child’s play
No one is born knowing how to catch a fish, and you have to know it to teach it.
In the past 30 years, urbanization and other cultural changes have created a dearth of capable fishing mentors. Recognizing the linkage of fishing among youths and environmental awareness in adults, every state and province in North America is engaged in efforts to become a surrogate fishing mentor for the next generation of anglers.
A week before Pennsylvania’s April 7 Mentored Youth Fishing Day, which gives kids first cast at stocked trout before the statewide opening day, the president and CEO of a major fishing and boating trade association said governmental youth fishing programs are valuable and necessary. But he said they are uncoordinated and don’tgo far enough.
This month the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation, a nonprofit aquatic recreation and resource organization, will release a commissioned study and pilot program of best-practice guidelines for youth fishing instruction. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission partnered with RBFF in developing the program. A series of related activities will be announcedsoon.
“Guidelines, some people are calling it — I call it a rubric,” Frank Peterson said. “New thoughts about moving from one-day events to series of events that keep people engaged. Not just kids, but family membersas well.”
The new #FirstCatch program includes an internet primer on learning the basics, finding places to fish, understanding license requirements and a posting board of participants’ first-catch photos.
Peterson said fishing participation statistics are improving nationwide. According to an RBFF count, from 2015-17 the number of kids age 6-17 who fished grew 8 percent. Among new fishing participants, 45 percent were women or girls, and the number of youths and Hispanics who fished for the first time wentup 20 percent.
“We found that 83 percent of current adults who fish were introduced to fishing before the age of 12,” Peterson said. “Ninety-four percent fished by the time they were 18. So if you don’t learn to fish before you’re 18, there’s only a 6 percent chance that you’ll pick it up later.”
The #FirstCatch program emphasizes what the fishing industry calls R3 — recruitment, retention and reactivation of anglers. The Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation recommends that aquatic wildlife agencies spend 10 percent of their federal Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration Act dollars on marketing campaigns for the recruitment ofnew anglers.
“I think it’s an opportunity for all [fishing product] manufacturers — not just fishermen and boaters — to invest in the future of the sport,” he said.
Many researchers believe the experience of feeling a fish on the line — making a physical connection to the natural world — and the family bonding that often goes with fishing can impact developmental skills among children. A 2011 Australian study of the health and well-being benefits of recreational fishing found the activity can be an effective tool in reaching troubled, detachedor anxious kids.
In the bestselling book “Last Child in the Woods” (Algonquin, 2008), journalist Richard Louv coined the phrase “nature-deficit disorder” and sparked a nationaldebate that helped spawn an international movement to reconnect kids and nature. In a prior work, “The Web of Life” (Conari Press, 1996), Louv wrote that teaching his own kids to fish cultivated a connection to nature awareness of the world outside the individual and family.
Amidea Daniels, Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission’s youth and women’s programs coordinator, said family fishing lessons work best when they’reage appropriate.
“All kiddos don’t develop motor skills at the same rate,” she said. “With 2- and 3-year-olds, we can get them to cast, but the problem is reeling in and setting the hook. Both of our kids were bigger — at age 3 they were the size of 5 year olds — and they could handle pushing buttons [on spincast reels]. They started fly fishing with a [no-reel] tenkara rod when theywere 4 or 5.”
Generally, kids who are 5 or 6 should use both hands to cast, and at 6 to 10 most children can operate a typical closed-face spincast reel, she said.
Catching fish is fun — there are no age restrictions — but Daniels said early support from a mentor is important. Non-fishing parents who are accommodating a child’s interest in fishing should learnthe fundamentals.
“At some of our family fishing programs, we have the Batman and Sponge Bob rods out and we’re constantly reminding the adults how to use them,” she said. “Kids respond well when they’re learning together with the parents. It’s supposed to be a family experience.Side by side.”
Knowing when not to fish is important, too.
“Parents, you need to understand that there are times when the kiddo is ready to put down the rod and play in the woods,” Daniels said. “Don’t get mad. That’s perfectly OK. It’s part of the experience as well.”