Teach Youngsters Fishing, A Lifetime Sport - Here's How It Works

Teaching the Specifics

EDITOR'S NOTE: Mountain Brook Junior High Physical Education Teacher John Phillips from Birmingham, Alabama, coaches basketball, cross-country and track and field. Phillips realizes that not all children enjoy traditional school sports. So, with the help of the Fisheries Section of Alabama's Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fish, he's implemented a fishing curriculum to show his students they can participate in other sports and enjoy them for their lifetimes.

QUESTION: John, in the second week of the curriculum, what did you teach?
ANSWER: In the second week, I taught more-specific fishing skills. One day I taught the students to tie knots and use those knots to tie their hooks onto fishing line. We used weights to test the breaking strength of the knots and to learn if they'd tied them correctly. If they hadn't tied the knots correctly, the knots wouldn't hold up to our strength test. So, we had them tie all four of those knots and tested them. They learned how to tie their lures, which knots worked successfully and how to do those correctly.

QUESTION: What else did you teach them in the second week?
ANSWER: I taught some fish identification. We did a slide show where we focused on salt-water fishing. Up to that point, we had focused mostly on freshwater fish. We talked about some of the fishing trips available at the Gulf of Mexico, only about 4 hours from our school. We also showed a video montage of one of our coaches who had been deep-sea fishing.

To learn more about the Alabama Fishing and Wildlife Curriculum, call Doug Darr in Montgomery, Alabama, at (334) 242 -3884, e-mail him at ddarr@dcnr.state.al.us, or write 64 N. Union St., Montgomery, AL 36130. You also can visit the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resource's Web site at www.dcnr.state.al.us. To learn the particulars about setting up the curriculum, contact John Phillips at Mountain Brook Jr. High (205) 871-3516, or e-mail him at phillipsj@mtnbrook.k12.al.us.

TOMORROW: A GREAT DAY OF FISHING