I am a high
school teacher in Lethbridge, and a while ago our
school started an outdoor ed program. Three years ago I took 14 students on a week long canoe trip into the Lakeland Provincial Park. The students had such a great time and talked about it so much that their younger siblings have been bugging me since then to do the trip again....and I finally gave in. We plan on going into the bush during the first week of July this coming summer...although this time I had 20 students sign up. YIKES.
A lot of the students that I took on the trip the first time three years ago either had never even caught a fish, or had very limited fishing experience (and therefore limited fishing gear). In order to keep the trip affordable for any kids that wanted to go, I posted an appeal for fishing gear on this forum. Some of the AO members contributed generously to my appeal : fishing rods, lures, line, spinner rigs....so much gear. I was blown away, as were the kids with the generosity of strangers. As you can imagine though, not all of the tackle that I "lent" out to the rookies came back....many a pike was swimming around Kinnard lake with a crankbait hanging out of it's mouth after it broke the line because the drag was set too high
Three years ago, in part because of the generosity of some of you, our trip was a huge success, so I am hoping that history repeats itself. If you have fishing gear that you would be willing to part with, I'm sure that we could use it. We will take anything that you think would be useful for the students as they fish for pike and walleye on a northern lake - spoons, crankbaits, swimbaits, rubber tailed jigs, mouth spreaders, landing nets, pliers.....quite frankly, pretty much anything for fishing.
I am in Lethbridge, but I have family in Edmonton, High River and St. Paul, so if you have gear to donate, there will probably be a way for me to snooker someone into getting it to me. Thanks for your time. I will post a report when the trip is over (just like last time).
Cheers,
Pike fisher