Yup - There are fish down there!

Between busy schedules and baseball season, we haven’t had a lot of time to go out fishing this summer.  The other day the stars aligned and my nephew Henry and I connected up for an evening on the river.  We headed 5 minutes down the road to the (not so) mighty Tualatin, rigged up the canoe, grabbed our fishing rods and life jackets and hit the water. We headed up stream a short distance to a rocky shoal and tail pool that has been known to produce Smallmouth Bass.  We fished the area, then back along the many docks and snags that line the river.  We saw beaver, wood ducks, herons and kingfishers.  We chatted with other paddlers and anglers.  We discussed how the river flowed and why it looked the way it did and watched the fish we weren’t catching with the fish finder.  The only thing missing was actually catching any fish.  

Henry developed his basic casting skills and reel handling playing with Backyard Bass in his backyard over the past year or so.  It served him well as he informed me that bobber fishing wasn’t too exciting, but casting spinners was a LOT of fun.  He took a little while to adapt to casting while sitting in a canoe seat, and watching his back cast so he didn’t hook a 180 lb uncle.  It didn’t take much time before he was putting the spinner pretty much where he wanted it.

As we pulled in and loaded the canoe in the last glimmers of the fading day, we both agreed that it was a pretty good fishing trip despite the lack of fish.  We’re headed out tomorrow to the St. Louis Ponds where, if we hold our mouths right and the fish gods smile, we’ll actually practice the catching part of fishing…. Wish us luck!

Debbie says, “Fishing is a great recreational and lifetime sport that anyone can do.  Many core values and social interaction skills are developed.”

Contact Teresa or Keith at the FFF for more information – http://www.futurefisherman.org/contact/index.html

Dear Teachers, Leaders and State Partners,

We hope the coming of spring has brought with it many fishing adventures for you and your students! We realize buying tackle for your education programs can be expensive. And we know it’s often difficult deciding exactly what to buy when there’s so much from which to choose.

The Future Fisherman Foundation (F3) wants to help you make the best selection of tackle for your program at the best price. That’s why we’ve started Tackle for Educators, a new program designed by F3 and its partners in response to requests from our teachers to assist in selection and purchase of “must have” items. After reviewing equipment orders placed in the past, discussing equipment needs with our state partners and analyzing program reports submitted as part of the Physh Ed and HOFNOD programs, our team determined the most requested and useful equipment items.

We then shared our list with our industry partners and asked if they would help us with a program to assist educators who are delivering long-term angling-education programs. Their response was enthusiastic. Each partner offered to provide special pricing and/or free shipping to help offset the price of ordering through this new program.

Criteria for Participation
To qualify for F3’s Tackle for Educators Program, you must be delivering youth education programs that provide several opportunities for participants to fish over a period of time as opposed to a half-day or one-day special event such as a fishing derby. Although we value fishing derbies as introductions to fishing, these do not qualify for our program. Samples of eligible programs include:

• School programs that include classroom lessons and field trips over the course of the year, semester or unit of study
• After-school programs that meet on a regular basis
• Community fishing clubs that host multiple trips over the course of the year or season
• Camps that meet over several days or weeks

Procedures
If you meet these criteria and want to learn more, visit our website (www.futurefisherman.org) and click on the Tackle For Educators button. This will take you to a page outlining all the Terms and Conditions for participating…

Below is a picture shared with us by Theresa Stabo of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Department of Natural Resources Secretary Matt Frank fishing for backyard bass at an event on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Secretary Matt Frank examines Backyard Bass on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day

A big Thank You to all of you involved in this undertaking!

Your friends at BackyardBass.con
Loren, Trino, Denise & Jim

“The Take Me Fishing campaign and Discovery Education announce the launch of Explore the Blue, an online initiative encouraging youth participation in on-the-water activities and aquatic conservation efforts.

Explore the Blue is a new resource empowering teachers and parents to engage students in a dialogue about the importance of outdoor recreational activities, such as boating and fishing, and the value of clean and healthy natural resources. The rich, interactive materials help students explore the world of outdoor recreation through exciting, hands-on activities. Through this initiative, students experience the magic of being on the water with family and friends, while learning about the importance of conservation efforts at the same time”

A quick visit to the site this morning finds a coordinated set of information and activities broken out for Educators, Parents and Kids. We’ll be back to explore it further as time permits.

A portion of the proceeds from each sale of this product will help support the Future Fisherman Foundation and their many projects and programs promoting angler education.   this offering fills the gap between the individual sets of 3 fish shaped casting targets and 2 casting plugs, and our larger offerings of bulk fish by the dozen.   In the short time it has been on the market, it has already proved to be a  popular size kit.

Covers a number of factors to consider when running a casting class or any event that involves people, fishing poles and casting.

Learning to Cast

Offers insights into the key skills and considerations you’ll want to convey to the novice casters, including focusing on accuracy in casts of any length, and the fact that many real-world casting situations won’t call for really long casts, and the importance of developing versatility in casting techniques to meet the challenges on the stream, river or lake.

Teaching Casting Methods

Provides 2 pages from the Future Fisherman Foundation’s Fishing is Simple Handbook Diagram and step by step tips for the Underhand and Aver hand casts. Click the images to see a larger version of the panel.

Over the years, we’ve principally relied on word of mouth in the angler education community to spread the word.  We feel its time to give a little something back, so we’ve put together the BackyardBass.com web site focused on creating a meeting spot for angler educators to share ideas and resources.  We invite you to join the community, share information on the forum and give us your feedback on the site and how we can make it more useful.

Our forum is set up for you to share your experiences or tap into the combined knowledge of the community.  Have something meatier that you’d like to share?  Let us know as we may be able to address it in our blog, or invite you to be a guest blogger.  If you have pictures of the Backyard Bass in use or testimonials, please share them.

In talking with educators over the years we are always amazed at the creative and interesting ways they have integrated the Backyard Bass into their programs.  We hope to collect these ideas and share them.  We’ll address this in an upcoming post and encourage you to share your ideas on the forum.

We would also like to collect and share information on other angling education resources and products, so send us links to your favorite sites or organizations.  Know where to find a grant to start a program?  Have a collection of course materials you can share?  Our goal is to create a community vetted selection of resources that will make developing and delivering angler education programs a little easier and more effective.

 Thanks for stopping by,

 Your friends at Ironwood Pacific Outdoors