After introducing some 108 newcomers to the sport during National Fishing week Borderlines took their friends from the Eden Rivers Trust fishing on the river Eden as part of “Take a friend fishing” a 6-week campaign, where the Anglers of the United Kingdom are being encouraged to take a person or persons who they feel would benefit from a day’s fishing. The aim of the campaign is to encourage over 500,000 committed anglers to take part in this festival between 21st July and 31st August and simply take a friend fishing.

Borderlines is a not for profit company with the aim of removing as many of the barriers to participation in angling as possible for all groups of the population regardless of age, ability, race, religion or social background throughout Cumbria, Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders.

The Eden Rivers Trust as part of the Discover Eden Heritage Lottery Funded project have enabled Borderlines to purchase a whole range of new equipment improving Borderlines services to schools, youth groups and other organisations within the community,  giving more young people the opportunity to gain an introduction to angling and the environment.

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Take A Friend FishingChris Bowman, Borderlines Company secretary and angling instructor, said, “Eden Rivers Trust staff are dealing with conservation, education and research in the river Eden catchment on a daily basis, they are promoting angling through their Fish Eden Website; www.fisheden.org.uk, their Go Wild Project; www.go-wild.org.uk and all river based activities through the Eden Rivers Festival, they are dealing with anglers on a regular basis; yet whilst talking to ERT staff we discovered that many of them had not tried fishing and the Take a friend fishing Campaign seemed the perfect opportunity to change all of that”.

So on Monday evening ERT Manager Maggie Robinson, Marketing and Events Officer Rachel Purdon, Scientific Officer Lucy Dugdale and Lizzie Fenton, Fisheries Officer joined Chris and other Borderlines instructors Glyn Freeman and Clive Mitchelhill on the banks of the beautiful river Eden at Eden Lacy to learn and try for themselves a variety of river fishing techniques including fly fishing, float fishing and legering.

After been introduced to casting with the fly rod and both fixed spool and centre pin reels they split into two groups each group trying trout fishing and coarse fishing during the course of the evening and although no monsters were caught the group landed small trout salmon parr and two small chub. Lizzie Fenton caught the biggest fish of the night a chub  of perhaps a pound in weight on a large piece of legered bread flake, but Lucy Dugdale came close after loosing a decent trout on the fly, Lucy caught a trout parr before hooking a chub only slightly smaller than Lizzie’s whilst trotting a float using a centre pin reel.

ERT Manager Maggie Robinson said ‘Take a Friend Fishing has been a lot of fun trying the different fishing techniques and a brilliant opportunity for us to get some expert fishing tuition from the Borderlines instructors.’

Scientific Officer Lucy said ‘ We are already planning our next fishing trip’.

For more information about Borderlines, please contact Chris Bowman (chris@bowmanfishman.fsnet.co.uk), Borderlines, Carlisle, Tel: 01228 674519, or Joanne Backshall (office@edenriverstrust.org.uk), Eden Rivers Trust, Penrith, Tel: 01768 866788.

Lizzie Fenton and Chris Bowman with Lizzie’s chub

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