Salmon and Trout Association: Education

Education is a high priority with S&TA, particularly in bringing young people into angling, teaching them waterside etiquette and safety, and introducing them to environmental issues, including the need to manage and protect fish species and the aquatic environment on which they depend.

Actually, if all people could be educated to the extent that there was no human impact on our water environment, then we wouldn’t need to manage anything – fish and their habitats can look after themselves very well on their own; it is only human interference that poses them a problem!

One Day Beginner Courses

S&TA Branches organise more than 100 local tuition days, from Caithness to Cornwall, introducing thousands of newcomers to the delights of angling and knowledge of the water environment. Without doubt, the highlight of these courses is the ‘bug hunt’, whereby participants are shown how to collect and identify invertebrate samples from rivers and lakes, and thereby plot trends in the health of our waters and, indeed, pick up sudden pollution events when they occur. This fits in very well with the work we undertake with our partners within the Riverfly Partnership (see: Riverfly Partnership).

The Brown Trout Big Book

In 2006, S&TA published the Brown Trout Big Book. This superb initiative was aimed at primary school children, to teach them about the aquatic environment through the life story of the brown trout, including the migratory sea trout phase, and the part played in their protection by anglers. The book majored heavily on the need for clean water and suitable habitat in order for trout to thrive.

The Brown Trout Book was published in both English and Gaelic versions, and distributed to 11,000 primary schools in England and Wales, and all 2,300 Scottish primary schools.

Devised and written by primary school teacher Sally Pizii, with illustrations by Sue Gatcombe, the book is designed to be shown in front of a class and easily seen by all the children in the room. Extensive classroom notes, also written by Sally Pizii, have been provided, presenting teachers with ready-made lessons around such subjects as poetry, writing and the use of a Contents Page. The Brown Trout Big Book is designed as an aid to developing a variety of intellectual skills in primary school children.

The Brown Trout book as proved an ideal vehicle for helping children to learn about the aquatic environment as well as the social, the economic and especially the environmental benefits of healthy stocks of wild brown trout.

Following the success of the Brown Trout book, S&TA are now publishing a similar volume on salmon – The Silver Leaper.

If you would like to obtain a copy of the Brown Trout Big Book, please contact Head Office on; 02072835838 or hq@salmon-trout.org

S&TA is currently embarking on a pilot project to bring angling and environmental education into schools, for participation and qualification of both pupils and teachers.