A popular misconception - well, two actually - are that Fishing for Schools purely works with young people and only functions during the school periods.
Wrong on both counts.
Throughout this summer, an array of fishing projects has been continuing, mostly in Kent and the southeast spearheaded by Warren White and his team – including myself – exploring more areas where Fishing for Schools can impact on young and not so young people’s lives. Whether they are curious about the world of angling or seeking peace and tranquility from an immersion into the world of water and natural settings, we're here to help.
I find it amusing that a sport that has offered many generations of people that very thing the current world has been craving - mindfulness, gentleness, absorption into another world and pastoral passive landscape - has been there all the while in the shape of a fishing rod, some angling trinkets and bait or fly…. All that people had to do was join us.
And join us they did in a cluster of programmes in North Kent and a very intriguing mini fly fishing course for residents in the Dover area that we hosted on behalf of White Cliffs Conservation at the Dour Centre.
What a revelation that was. A tiny ribbon of urban chalk stream, threading its way through this ultra busy port and gateway to and from Europe, full of discarded detritus could hold the wealth of insect life and trout population that it clearly does; amazing.
The children were utterly enthralled and taken to a world that they absolutely had no idea existed and are, as a result, passionate about the bugs, the trout and the preservation of this ribbon of pristine wonder in an urban heartland.
So, you see, we never stop, ever.
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