Inland Fisheries Ireland was delighted to attend the recent graduation ceremony and presentation of certificates to transition year students from Christian Brothers School (CBS) James Street, Dublin 8, after their recent successful completion of the second annual Angling Adventure flyfishing project, run in co-operation with eir and IFI.
Following the success of the programme in 2017, it was expanded this year to cover even more elements of fishing including coarse, pike and fly fishing, casting, fly tying, and environmental awareness.
The 13-week programme with IFI and the inner-city Dublin school has been very generously funded by eir under its remit of corporate social responsibility to communities and the environment.
Alongside classroom workshops delivered by experts in the field of fly tying and casting, field trips were organised at Lough Ramor, Virginia, Co. Cavan, Annamoe Trout Fishery in Co. Wicklow and the K Club’s pike fishing lakes in Co. Kildare, as well as an environmental field trip to the River Dodder in Dublin.
Attendance throughout the course was excellent and pupils were fully engaged with the course content and their mentors. The programme ran from January to April and it is hoped that the participants will have reached a standard high enough to obtain the President’s GAISCE Award.
“This project has huge benefits for all partners,” said Ciaran Ward, organiser of the programme for eir. “From our perspective, eir sees this project as a good way to demonstrate being a good corporate citizen. Through teaching these teenagers fishing skills, hopefully, some may go on to become future custodians of our rivers and lakes benefitting the participants and, for IFI, it is an opportunity to introduce more young people to angling.”
Brian Beckett, Director of the Eastern River Basin District, Inland Fisheries Ireland, said: “A contributing factor to the success of this eir/IFI initiative is the tremendous support from the angling community, who have given freely of their time through the running of the programme to pass on their knowledge of particular disciplines of angling. And, of course, an added benefit is that the mentors on the programme are positive role models for the students. It is also hoped that these youngsters will put their newly learned fishing skills into practice and take up a hobby that can be lifelong.”
