Scouting For New Anglers

If there is one thing that we at the Angling Trust are passionate about, it’s introducing young people to fishing. Making sure everyone has an opportunity to enjoy the outdoors and learn more about nature is absolutely fundamental and fishing is an amazing way to do just that.

The Scouts have been introducing young people to the great outdoors for over 100 years and there are currently over 450,000 active scouts in the UK. That presents a fantastic opportunity to introduce a huge number of them to angling through the Scout Angling Badge.

Like most Scout badges, earning the Angling badge requires participants to acquire a mixture of practical skills and knowledge of the subject which Scouts then must demonstrate before they earn their badge. With over 200 different scout badges to try to earn it’s fantastic to see the Angling badge being sponsored and promoted by one of Angling Trust’s key trade partners, Fishing Republic.

As part of that sponsorship, Fishing Republic supported a fantastic fishing event at the Scouts Gilwell Park Adventure Centre last summer. With Angling Trust licensed coaches on hand and a celebrity visit from legendary England keeper (and passionate angler) David Seaman, it turned out to be an amazing event and gave over 100 scouts the opportunity to try fishing for the first time.

          The Scout Fishing badge

“Events like the fishing day at Gilwell Park are exactly why we sponsor the Scouts fishing badge,” commented  Juliette Whittaker, Senior Marketing Executive for Fishing Republic. “Seeing so many young people being introduced to the sport and getting to meet a legend like David Seaman hopefully inspires them to become life-long anglers. With the majority of our stores being inside Go Outdoors Superstores, we already get a huge number of visits from scouts and their families as they buy clothing and equipment for their scouting adventures, so being able to offer them a wide range of high quality fishing tackle on site is a perfect way to get them out there fishing.”

Over the last three years over 3,000 scouts have been awarded their Angling Activity badge and have started a journey that will hopefully lead them to enjoy fishing for the rest of their lives.

From an Angling Trust point of view, this is exactly the sort of tackle trade investment we want to see in our sport. It’s brilliant to see a major retailer giving something back, encouraging Scouts to try fishing and helping to inspire a new generation of environmentally minded anglers.

Fishing Republic can be found in Go Outdoors stores right around the country and Angling Trust members get 10% discount on all purchases.