Let's Go Fishing!
IGFA and the National Park Service Work Together to Connect People to Parks Through Recreational Fishing
The IGFA completed another stellar year of angling education events in National Park Service (NPS) locations across the country, thanks to the continued support from the National Park Foundation.
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What began seven years ago as a joint effort on the Junior Ranger: Let’s Go Fishing! activity book and the Junior Ranger Angler program has flourished into a comprehensive program with in-person Learn-to-Fish events for spin fishing, surf fishing, and now fly fishing and with digital training resources on the horizon. The IGFA goes beyond providing NPS sites with a Passports to Fishing kit; we train park staff and volunteers on responsible, ethical angling practices, and engage all Fish & Feathers interns in learning the sport of recreational fishing, the importance of conservation, and how to teach someone to fish to set them up for success during their internship at various park sites.
In 2025, the IGFA sent Passports to Fishing kits to 10 new sites, with more than 30 sites receiving a Passports to Fishing kit since the inception of our collaborative efforts. IGFA Education staff visited five sites to co-host an in-person event and do further training with park staff, interns, and volunteers. Here is a recap of each adventure.
In May 2025, the IGFA set out for Rocky Mountain National Park again, this time in Estes Park, Colorado, U.S. There, we work with Environment for the Americas to train the Fish & Feathers interns on learning to spin fish and how to teach others to spin fish. IGFA Education Manager Nick DeGennaro taught 23 interns this year about the fundamentals of recreational fishing using spinning gear and walked them through presentations on how to fish different bodies of water and how to identify certain game fish they could find at their park sites. After this training workshop week, the interns are then dispersed to various parks nationwide where they conduct their own fishing and birding programs for members and visitors of those park sites. Covering a variety of fishing techniques and game fish species can prove difficult, as the United States has a plethora of waters and angling opportunities. However, the interns remain engaged and interested in learning all they can and continue to maintain communication with the IGFA throughout their 12-week summer internship.
This is our third year returning to Rocky Mountain National Park, and every year has been a treat. Even though snow decided to fall on us this year, canceling the public event we co-host with trained interns at the end of their week-long training workshop, we salvaged the day with offering more fishing and teaching opportunities at the YMCA of the Rockies allowing them to not only fish and get to know one another more, but also get to know the IGFA and how we can help them build their own angling education programs.
Glaine Cepeda, an intern who then ventured to American Memorial Park in the Northern Mariana Islands, describes his experience, "During the workshop, we were introduced to birding and fishing in a way I had never imagined. I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did, but something about learning how to identify birds, understanding their behaviors, and seeing them up close sparked a real interest in me. The same goes for fishing; we weren’t just throwing lines into the water, we were learning about conservation, sustainability, and how to pass that knowledge on to others.”
After Rocky Mountain, the IGFA Education team turned our attention to Washington, U.S., and Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area’s annual Fish Fest on June 8, 2025. This was the largest attended event of 2025, with more than 150 people participating, and it had the most diverse landscapes we encountered thus far in just one National Park site to film a virtual field trip. Starting near the Grand Coulee Dam, we fished for smallmouth bass and were surrounded by large columns of historically cooled lava. We then ventured near Fort Spokane, targeting smallmouth bass and rainbow trout/steelhead in the Channeled Scabland with canyons and steep cliffs that were carved by ice-age floods. We ended the trip in Kettle Falls in the Okanogan Highlands, which is actually an extension of the Rocky Mountains, where we caught a juvenile chinook salmon and reveled in the beauty of the landscape and the quiet of the evening.
The next adventure took IGFA’s staff on quite the trek in the Midwest, covering two National Park sites at the end of June: the Missouri National Recreational River in Yankton, South Dakota, and the Niobrara National Scenic River in Johnstown, Nebraska. Both sites received training on the Passports to Fishing program and co-hosted an event with the IGFA. They each had a Fish & Feathers intern that we trained a month prior, so it was nice to see them again and to see them in action at their own respective park site, leading on what they were trained on earlier. With great fishing opportunities at each site, several first catches occurred, and each made for a nice community event. “I can’t wait to tell my dad I caught a smallmouth. He’s going to be so proud of me,” said Trinity W., age 15 years, during the Missouri National Recreational River event.
It was also great to see IGFA’s angling educators, Emily and Cristian, take the lead on training park staff at Niobrara. They have been on numerous trips with the IGFA, and have been trained throughout, so they took the next step into a leadership role within the IGFA Education Department just as the Fish & Feathers interns took on their leadership role with fishing and birding programs at their respective park sites. Seeing this transition of the next generation of angling educators in action was priceless.
Our last adventure for 2025 was a new one for the IGFA. Until now, we have focused on spin fishing as that is more feasible for beginners to learn and for park staff and volunteers to help educate about. However, one park site, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, on Lake Superior in Munising, Michigan, U.S., reached out to the IGFA to see if we could co-host a Learn-to-Fly Fish event. Coincidentally, the IGFA was working on a Passports to Fly Fishing program, a spin-off of the Passports to Fishing that focuses on spin fishing. For those of us who know fly fishing, it can prove difficult to learn at times and to teach it to others, especially with as big a group as we had at Pictured Rocks.
In total, 55 kids showed up to learn how to fly fish, and nearly 80 people overall, with 60% of participants admitting that they had never fly fished before! With this being the first time hosting a Learn-to-Fly Fish event with the Passports to Fly Fishing prototype, it was challenging at first, but with the station-style teaching, the event flowed very well and received positive feedback from participants. From a post-event survey, results showed a 138% growth in fly fishing knowledge, with 100% of participants expressing that they are likely or very likely to go fly fishing after the event. It was a great start, and the IGFA learned a lot to continue working on the Passports to Fly Fishing program to launch and distribute kits in the following year to help others learn the sport.
Our work with the National Park Service continues to be one of our favorites, and we cannot thank the National Park Foundation enough for their continued support. This project has helped us grow as anglers, as educators, and as professionals in angling education and training resources. It has taken us to some of the most pristine habitats in the country, filled with game fish we revere, reminding us why we venture out there in the first place and why we work with others to teach them the sport, and why we should conserve game fish and their habitats by recreating responsibly. Our work is far from over, though. We are already working on 2026 adventures with new digital resources to further expand our reach and train others in how to host angling education events and how to venture out themselves as safe, responsible, and ethical anglers. Connecting people to the outdoors through recreational fishing is what we love to do. More is on the horizon, so stay tuned!
