| Preparations
for New Zealand’s biggest free children’s fishing day
well under way
Hundreds of salmon, 10,000 worms and thousands of optimistic young
anglers will come together again in north Christchurch this month
thanks to the efforts of about 80 volunteers and the kindness of
many local businesses.
Take a Kid Fishing has been running for 18 years
in Canterbury, one of the region’s most popular and keenly
anticipated family outings. Last year, the organisers estimated
that 4500 children took part and the record attendance was about
6000 young anglers.
It’s all organized and run by volunteers.
Some, like convenor Dave Denton, have been helping pull together
this annual event from the beginning and have noticed a number of
changes.
“One of the things that have been noticeable
over the years is the changes in families,” Dave says. “I
remember realising that there were now lots of kids there who only
had mums and those mums were trying really hard to give their children
a different experience. More recently, we realised that the worried
look on some parents’ faces was there because they didn’t
know what to do with a fish that had just come out of the water.
“So we started having some of the volunteers
show the kids and the parents how to clean a fish, how to prepare
it for cooking. Even more recently we’ve found that a lot
of people don’t have much experience of cooking whole fish.
We talked to Jo Seagar about it and she’s very kindly agreed
to come down from Oxford and give some demonstrations about how
to simply prepare a good meal from the catch.
“As the numbers grew we had to organise
it to make sure the younger children got a fair go, so we set the
mornings aside for the under-13s and made one pond just for the
under-9s,” Dave says. “Another change was having to
get security staff for The Groynes for the day or so that the fish
are in the lakes before the event to discourage people from helping
themselves.”
The Isaac Salmon Farm Ltd provides hundreds
of fish for the event each year. The bait comes from worm farmer
Russell Marsh. “Russell packs the worms into two polystyrene
packs and I collect them the day before,” Dave says. “The
trick on the day is for a small team wearing rubber gloves to repack
them all into film canisters so they can be handed out.
“It’s quite an undertaking but we
seem to get there every year,” Dave says. “Fish and
Game’s people give a lot of their time, they help out by providing
the tanker to transfer the fish from the salmon farm and providing
photocopying services for the publicity fliers we send out all over
the region. Isaac Salmon are really wonderful. About 80 volunteers
come from fishing clubs from all over Canterbury. They’ll
give advice and help children learn how it’s done, and others
show them how to clean the fish.”
Take a Kid Fishing is an enduring community success. Dave says the
volunteers and businesses involved would keep doing their bit just
to see the enjoyment children get out of it. “But it would
be really great too,” he says, “if all these people
who pitch in could get a bit of recognition for what they do. That
would be great.”
Why?
Take a Kid Fishing has been running in Christchurch
for 18 years. The idea began with United States President Ronald
Reagan, who asked his staff to come up with an idea that would stop
young people going bad. In various forms around New Zealand and
the world, Take a Kid Fishing continues to run and attract volunteers,
young people and their parents and caregivers.
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