The Director's Update - April 2026

By a very large margin this is not the introduction I was going to write this month.

I was going to talk about the vital importance, especially to a young audience, of our natural world – the subsurface world of wonder, mini beasts, secret lives of fish and, often, blatant natural aggression and survival of the fittest. That will be next month.

This time, though, a world of difference.

I believe one of our strongest ambitions for most, if not any true fisher, is to share the passion. To see the sport grow and prosper within another generation of anglers.

Imagine my joy when my little granddaughter Thea desperately wanted to go fishing… I was pestered, nagged and continually asked "Chacha? WHEN are we going FISHING!!"

So, with an icy spring north-easterly wind scything its way across Lliswerry Pond, a tub of maggots, a short pole and dainty float, we set out.

Normally it’s a feisty little perch, its spiky fins rigid in anger, with bold sergeant stripes and bright red fins that leads a youngster into the world of angling.

Not Thea... her first catch was a bright, silver scaled roach, delicately splashed with blues and lavender, red-orange fins flickering, and then a silver medallion of a skimmer bream. Fish don’t read books or follow rules.

Thea was just thrilled. Maggot-unfazed (unlike grandma!), she stuck it out in the frigid conditions and is desperate to go again – and so we shall. I have a new fishing buddy.

And so it begins…

The kaleidoscope of angling: throwing shapes, shades and colour over our fishing world.

The reason, actually, that Fishing for Schools began in the first place.

Sometimes, in all the complication and minutiae of management and spreadsheets, risk assessments and coaching protocols, it is easy to forget that, at its core, Fishing for Schools is just about young people being offered a glimpse into a timeless world of subtle excitement, with gentle immersion into a sport that might last their entire lives and take them to water, countries, strange-named fish and adventures of a lifetime.

And to think, it just takes one small fish, a little person with a passion to do something and a bit of tenacity and sense of adventure.

That’s all.