By Tammy Millsaps
Happy 2019 from the Swainglers! We have returned to school from our two-week Christmas break. Due to the holiday, we didn’t have our monthly fishing trip. This article won’t contain a fishing report but I have great news about Swain County Schools in western North Carolina. Swain East Elementary and Swain Middle School have fishing clubs now! That is a great addition to our high school club, which is in our third year.
The middle school has approximately 25 members, made up of both young men and women. They take one fishing trip per semester. Their first trip was on November 20th to Darnell Farms.Trips last approximately two hours each. They are exploring the possibility of an actual boat trip in the spring, which is in the planning stage right now! Most of their club time is devoted to talking about fishing, fly tying and knot tying. They were able to get one guest speaker for one of their clubs and will have another at the end of January who will talk about his experiences in collegiate bass fishing and now his first experience in the BASS Opens on the Harris Chain in Florida.
Staff sponsors are Kevin Allman and Brandon Sutton. The club founders and student leaders are Enoch Franklin, Andy Ledford, Dallas Hunt and Logan Green. Some of the students have named their club the Swaingler Juniors!
East Elementary’s fourth grader and one of the fishing club’s student leaders, Noah Brown, contributed the following: “We taught the fishing club members how to tie fishing knots and how to cast with a spinning reel. We had a casting contest and looked at different kinds of fish. We would have liked to go fishing at the lake.” The other student leaders along with Brown, are Feniz Taylor and Cody Fox. Club sponsor, Plato Posey described the club as follows: “We had three leaders and ten or so members. Some of the kids had never used a fishing reel before but had a really good time learning. The three club leaders planned and led the meetings and I just rode herd, keeping things safe and moving. We had three, sixty-minute meetings. I would have liked to have taken them fishing, but the time and staff members were not available.”
I am so excited that these clubs have formed! As I have said many times in previous articles, it is so important to get kids outside. Learning opportunities are endless in the great outdoors. Who knows, some of the students might choose an outdoor career such as a forest/park ranger, wildlife/marine biologist, farmer, and so on! The foundation for any of these career paths is not only an education but, most of all, support and encouragement from the parents/caregivers of these young adults!
Tammy Millsaps is the Leader of The Swainglers fishing club at Swain County High School in Bryson City, North Carolina. They fish once a month of the school year during club time. Contact her at tmillsaps@swainmail.org for more information or to support this popular club.