Riverlution Festival and SPRITE Tenkara in the Town
Posted on September 25, 2012
Sunday the 23rd September saw the first “Riverlution” festival for a whole collection of local river users and interest groups including local rivers trust members, kayakers, cyclists, river stewards, breweries, traders and more.SPRITE (Sheffield Trout in the Town group) teamed up with Discover Tenkara to offer kids (and their parents or guardians!) the chance to try traditional Japanese style fly fishing known as “tenkara”.
The starting point was looking in the bug sample tray to see the kinds of wriggly things that lived in the river in the city centre. This lead straight on into learning how to tie an artificial fly with SPRITE and Fly Dresser’s Guild members:
Not bad at all for a first effort!
This entitled participants to get a sticker on their certificate:
Next (for another sticker) came the “on the street” casting lesson:
Then, once togged up in thigh waders, safety sun glasses, buoyancy aid and armed with tenkara rod, line and landing net (all bought and provided by SPRITE), it was into the river for a practice at playing fish with “Freddy The Magic Plastic Fish“
That gave three full stickers on the certificate — and gained the chance to try to catch a fish for real!
It was hard to persuade participants that their time was up and to return to dry land!
All the participants had a great experience and many,many thanks to all SPRITE supporters who helped out on the day and during the preparations.
Riverlution was the first “full on” public use of a Tenkara in the Town event to engage local communities with their urban river. It followed on from a very successful trial back at the beginning of summer following a SPRITE habitat working party with David and grandson Connor proving to be excellent guinea pigs. Both of them hooked a trout on their third ever casts each! Pictures of this fantastic inauguration below:
As with many things in life, when it comes to the joy of catching that first fish, a picture is worth a thousand words:
