Where is the best place to spend your program dollars? For Scouting Executives and Volunteers, this must be the million-dollar question.

What is the purpose of spending these precious dollars? The Wildlife Conservation Profession has a initiative called R3. The three R’s stand for Recruitment, Retention and Re engagement. If you don’t know this, virtually all wildlife conservation dollars are raised by the sales a licenses and related equipment. All guns, ammunition and fishing related gear has a tax on it for funding conservation. The State Agencies whose job is conservation know this and have initiatives to recruit sportsmen and women to fish and hunt.

We in Scouting should see R3 in our ranks also. We should be thinking R3 for both Youth and Adult Volunteers.

Boy’s life magazine did a survey. They asked Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts what activities they expected to do after 3 months after their registration. Their answer at the top was Camping and hiking. The Cub Scouts had fishing as #5 and the Boy Scouts had fishing as #3. Surprisingly, these were both above shooting.

So, to have satisfied customers, you need to meet their expectations. Do we inherently make a promise to the youth by their expectations and don’t meet them? How about looking at fishing as your hook? (Pardon the pun, I just couldn’t help myself)

Here is one way to start. Consider having a Certified Angling Instructor Class (CAI) in your council. This class will give you more knowledgeable and enthusiastic Volunteers. Your Fishing, Fly Fishing and Wildlife Conservation Merit Badge Counselors are your target market for this class.

From the CAI class, see if you can start a Council Fishing Committee. You will need a leader who has the management skills to run a committee. This Committee runs fishing events in your council.

It is really that easy.

If you want more Youth, look at fishing. It is the best bargain in Scouting!

What makes fishing such a great outdoor activity? Especially today, we are not fishing to feed our families. We fish for the challenge of fooling the fish into thinking we can imitate the natural environment and their prey. Many times, we catch and release the fish. We do this so we can keep a resource and possibly catch them when they have grown bigger. 

Most times we go fishing not to catch fish but, to be outside many times sitting next to a beautiful mountain stream or rocking with the blue ocean. It is an activity that will transport us away from the stresses of everyday life and the only thing we can think about is concentrating on what we must do next to catch that fish.  

The act of fishing drives us to want to preserve this experience for ourselves. In the long run, it makes us want to preserve it for future generations. From this, we learn about wildlife conservation. Fishing teaches us to care about things beyond ourselves. 

The fact is that I would probably not be a Scout Leader without fishing. 

My father was raised in a very poor part of Los Angeles from a poor Japanese immigrant family. The local Catholic Church had the best school in the area. My Grandparents valued education as the way out of poverty so my dad and his brother we enrolled in that school.  

That school had a Boy Scout Troop. My father told me that his lifetime love of fishing came from learning to fish in Boy Scouts. He passed his love for fishing to me and enrolled me in Scouts as soon as I was old enough. I did the same thing when my son was old enough to be a Tiger Scout. My dad only became a Second Class Scout but he always lived by the Scout Oath and Law.  

We, as Scout Leaders, have many opportunities to influence many generations ahead of us. It is why most of us are Scout Leaders. It would have to be obvious to you why, I have chosen fishing as my way of keeping Youth active in our movement. We all must have that special bait to keep and retain Youth. Therefore, fishing is my tool. 

You bet it has! The National Fishing Sub Committee has responded to this by some hard work by our members to adapt to the “new normal”.

A revision to the Fishing Merit Badge Counselor’s Guide and the Fly-Fishing Merit Badge Counselor’s Guide have been made.  Check them out at:  https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/Outdoor%20Program/pdf/FishingCounselorGuide.kc.pdf

https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/Outdoor%20Program/pdf/Fly-FishingCounselorGuide.kc.pdf

With virtual meetings being used due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we are in development of a course on virtual meetings and how to have them. We know many of our Certified Angling Instructors would make good use of these.

We are currently building the online portion of Certified Angling Instructor (CAI) Course. We realize there is a hands-on element to fishing so at this point we think about a third of this cornerstone course for fishing can be done virtually.

The next online development challenge will be the merit badges. We think much of the material can be taught online but there may be elements that will need equipment or instruction that cannot be virtual. We are hoping to have a viable online curriculum by the end of summer on both the CAI Course and Fishing Merit Badge.

Now, let’s talk about being safe in the “new normal”.  If we are to go outside, we need to practice social distancing. Hey, what about fishing? Social distancing is easy while fishing, especially when fishing from shore.

You do not need a fancy boat, piles of fishing rods or really any fancy equipment to have fun fishing. At most local lakes, all you need is a stick or cane pole, fishing line, hooks, a bobber and worms to have fun. Who can remember being 8 to 15 years old and catching bluegill all day until you couldn’t see the bobber anymore because it was dark?  These are some of fond memories we can help build.

Our commitment to youth has always been to create memories for them.  Don’t you have the same idea? Help our youth to get that cane pole, bobber, hooks and worms to go fishing. By doing this, we can create a memory for them forever.