The Fishmongers' Company is one of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of the City of London and amongst the most ancient of the City Guilds, with an unbroken existence of more than 700 years. In common with the other Livery Companies, The Fishmongers' Company spends a large proportion of its resources in education and charity and has supported a great deal of work within Scottish fisheries trusts. Most notably, on Tweed, the Fishmongers' have supported the Tweed Trout & Grayling Initiative.
First stop was to see a Tweed Wheelyboat in action on the Tweedswood beat near Melrose. The Wheelyboats have been in operation on the River for the past 2 seasons allowing disabled and less-abled anglers to have full access to the River to fish for Salmon.
Following this, the Fishmongers' helicopter landed at The Roxburghe Hotel to visit a TweedStart day in action on the Roxburghe Ponds. TweedStart was the brainchild of Eoin Fairgrive and aims to encourage children and young people to take up fishing. In the last 3 years, TweedStart days have seen 4,000 children from Primary Schools across the Borders visit the facility to learn more about basic river conservation flylife and fishing. The initiative has been a huge success with the schools and the aim now is to extend this interest to allow children to continue to learn to fish by also targetting secondary schools by offering fishing club facilities to allow them to develop their skills prior to joining the local Angling Clubs and Associations in the region as competent fishers.
The Fishmongers' party land at The Roxburghe Hotel From L to R: Eoin Fairgrieve, TweedStart Angling Development Officer and Nick Yonge,
Tweed Foundation Director welcome Keith Waters and Robin Holland Martin of the
Fishmongers' Company, Jane Waters and Dominique Holland Martin to TweedStart to see
a schools day in progress
Schoolchildren from Ancrum Primary School taking part in the pond dipping part of the TweedStart day.
Kenny Galt (centre), the Foundation's Tweed Trout & Grayling Biologist
leads the entomology part of the TweedStart days, teaching children bug
identification, life stages and how important fly life is to river ecology,
fish and fishing
Having had sessions on river flylife, health & safety near water, bug and beastie identification and habits, fly tying and been kitted out with appropriate equipment for fishing (life jackets and glassess essential), the children are given their first taste of trying to hook a Rainbow Trout on the Roxburghe Ponds.
Children from Ancrum Primary School try fly casting with (L) Kenny Gald and (R) Eoin Fairgrieve
To learn more about TweedStart, visit the dedicated website: TweedStart
http://www.tweedstart.org.uk/