This morning I woke up at 4:30am and was anxious to get things started. With the event expanding each year, there are more items to worry about. The amount of time it takes to set up becomes longer because there are more tents to put up.
Dragonspeed and Chrome Mykiss arrived with their trucks at 8:00am and loaded up everything from my garage. We got down there at 8:15am and met up with half a dozen volunteers. The setup finished at 9:45am and all volunteers and exhibitors had arrived (the Chilliwack crew were one hour late as they were apparently filming some illegal driftnetting on the way down
).
The start was kind of slow, but by 10:30am, a sudden convergence of crowd brought the festive atmosphere to the pier. From then until finishing, people arrived steadily, which was nice as it gives us a chance to talk to everyone.
The birds of prey were once again the stars of the event. Their job is to bring awareness of predatory birds to the public and they had certainly accomplished that task. A small group of spectators could be seen around the birds tent throughout the event.
This year's new addition is the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC from Abbotsford. The team brought the freshwater component of fishing to the event, which residents around Richmond don't often hear about. Hopefully this exposure will bring many interests to the new learn to fish program at the hatchery.
Another big attraction at this event is always the coho salmon fry aquarium by the Seymour Salmonid Society.
Not many fish were caught as the tide was outgoing, but some sculpins and peamouth chubs were brought to the fish tank. The biggest fish of the day was a largescaled sucker, estimated to be between 18 and 20 inches in length! Carlo attempted proper fish handling skill demonstration, but we won't go into how it ended.
The flycasting clinic brought out many curious onlookers, who all tried to learn a casting trick or two.
Big Steel, Randog, svsv71 and Chris put together an impressive river fishing display. Hopefully this helped out many people who wanted to learn more about river fishing.
Another new addition this year is the presence of DFO officers. After our communication yesterday, three DFO officers attended the event to check licenses, explain their duties to the public and educate all on what they should do when violations are witnessed. Later on the event, they brought out the fishery patrol boat and docked at the pier so all the kids could have a good look. As usual, we had our RCMP officers who were volunteering their free time to patrol the pier. This type of community outreach activities are only beneficial to all parties so I appreciate that they took the time to come out.
Many thanks to all the volunteers once again. Your support is always needed. Without it, fishing licenses would not be written, kids wouldn't be able to fish safely, people wouldn't be able to tie flies, learn how to fish, or actually, the event wouldn't even happen. It is this support that makes me say, "ok... we'll do this again next year."
Still tired, but more photos and videos to come.
Author
Topic: Fish for the Future 2007, thank you! (Read 7144 times)