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Go fish!
(by Kara Krekeler - June 23, 2010)
To many people, a summer day spent fishing only takes place out in the country, away from the bustle of the city. But for the past few summers, kids have been learning to fish at a handful of St. Louis-area conservation lakes, including in Forest Park.
Go Fish!, a free program from the Missouri Department of Conservation, encourages kids to put down their video game controllers and pick up a rod and reel.
Program coordinator Denise Otto said that the program started after she noticed how disconnected from the environment many urban and suburban kids are. “It’s a huge concern. They have no appreciation for the environment, so if the environment gets damaged, they don’t know what they’ve lost,” she said.
To reconnect kids with the environment, and Missouri waterways in particular, Otto founded the Go Fish! program in 2007, making it the first of its kind in the U.S. She noted that there are a few other states that have angler education programs, including Texas and Wisconsin, and that she did take “bits and pieces of their success,” but most of the program is new and based on a study by the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation.
That study recommends introducing kids to fishing at a young age and notes that they must be exposed to fishing at least seven times to make it a habit. Also, and this is an important one, they have to be successful — in other words, catch a fish — in order to really latch onto the sport.
Incorporating those recommendations, Otto created a free program for 7- to 15-year-olds with seven classes — or “hooks,” as she dubbed them — that cover everything from the basics of equipment and casting to more complex issues such as conservation and fish cleaning. Each hook covers a different topic, taught by volunteer instructors. After about 30 minutes of teaching, the volunteers take the kids over to three stocked lakes in Forest Park that are owned by the Missouri Department of Conservation and used only for educational purposes for about 90 minutes of fishing.
At the end of each class, participants receive a piece of fishing equipment — such as a tackle box or lures — so that by the end of the seven hooks, they have all the gear they need to go fishing on their own.
While the program started small three years ago, it’s grown exponentially; Otto estimated that about 400 kids will participate in the classes at Forest Park this year.
Mike Krueger, a volunteer at Forest Park, said that he gets a thrill out of watching kids evolve through the course of the program.
“Most of the kids I see at Forest Park have never seen a live worm, never seen a live fish and never been fishing. I have to get them to touch the worm and touch the fish,” Krueger said. “By the time we get done [with the program] they’ll touch the worm, touch the fish and do the lures by themselves. They get so excited about actually catching fish.”
The enthusiasm seems to be spreading to the younger siblings of the program’s participants. Krueger said that he’s seen several kids who tried to tag along before they were old enough show up the next year, raring to go fishing.
Otto said that one of the problems with fishing as recreation is that it’s not as easy to approach as, say, soccer. “I understand that soccer’s great, that all you need is a ball and some shoes and you’re ready to go,” Otto said. “Fishing isn’t that way. Parents are intimidated because they don’t know how to do it themselves.”
She’s found, however, that since parents are required to stay with their kids during the classes, a lot of them are less anxious about getting fishing licenses themselves and taking their kids fishing.
One might wonder why getting kids interested in fishing is so important, but to Otto, it’s simple: anglers play a huge role in state environmental efforts. “It’s important to create little stewards of the environment,” she said. “If we don’t educate these kids and they don’t understand how something developing happens to affect fisheries, they don’t care. We have to teach them.”
So far, the program has been working well. In a survey Otto performed last year, she found that 89 percent of kids had gone fishing after completing the program, 74 percent of those with their parents.
The program is now receiving attention from other conservation departments across the country, and Otto said that she’s working on copyrighting the program so that the Missouri Department of Conservation can share it with other organizations.
“We want them to do it the way we do this. Because it works here,” she said.
• Go Fish! is a free program, but registration is required. For more information, call the Missouri Department of Conservation at 636-441-4554 or visit http://mdc.mo.gov/areas/stlouis/fish/fishing/lakes.
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