Groton holds First Annual Let's Go Fishing Clinic

Photos and Story By Peter Kimball

Reprinted with permission from “The Bridge Weekly” May 19^th 2006 Issue

The rain poured down, but the spirits of the participants were not dampened as Donald and Leslee Schmidt opened their Groton property to about 40 youngsters last Saturday for the first annual Groton Lets Go Fishing Clinic. The event was a cooperative effort between the Groton Recreation Committee and Vermont Fish and Wildlife. Vermont's Let's Go Fishing program relies on volunteers to organize fishing clinics in their communities or schools to teach successful fishing techniques and ethical attitudes to Vermont's next generation of anglers.

Vermont Game Warden, Dennis Amsden of Danville spoke to the youngsters on ethics: catch and release, respect for others and property, and fishing laws.

Other areas included in the program were: fish identification, knot tying, fishing techniques. The participants were given some time to fish in the newly stocked pond and were shown the proper technique of cleaning a fish.

Don Schmidt and VT Game Warden Dennis Amsden.	Some of the volunteers who help organize and run the derby activities were: Kneeling L- Leslee Tocci and Steve Hart. Standing (L) Don Schmidt, Eyrich Stauffer, Toby Peters, Debra Tinkham, Craig Darling and Russ Tinkham
Volunteers(L) Roy Davis of Groton, Craig Darling of Groton, Mike Green of Ryegate and Skip Irwin of Groton change the hooks and bobbins of fishing poles at the fishing clinic and derby.	Volunteers Betty and Buzzie Eastman of Groton cook hot dogs and hamburgers for the hungry participants.

Note: some captions omitted in web version of the photos.