BY KEVIN WOODRUFF

The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission will host a family fishing festival at Lackawanna State Park on Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The festival will focus on teaching fishing skills to adults and children with limited experience.
The festival will be set up into five stations, including casting/safety, knots/rigging, fish species found at the park, rules/regulations and equipment.

PFBC Northeast Region Education Specialist Andy Fedor said that each station will be broken down into 15 minute sessions.

“The day will start out with getting everyone acclimated and settled in,” Fedor said. “Then we will break people off into groups to go to their different stations.”

Fedor said that after all the groups has gone through all five stations, PFBC staffers will pass out tackle and bait for everyone to get a chance to fish.

Fedor said that the PFBC has been doing fishing programs for several years, but only recently started doing them with a “festival” format.

“We expanded two years ago to the festival format,” Fedor said. “It allows us to cater to larger groups.”

He said that most of the time there is good turnout for the events.

“It depends a lot on weather, but if we have nice weather there is typically a good group of people,” Fedor said.

Among the people who show up, Fedor said there are people from cities as well as rural areas.
He even noted that some adults who have fishing experience bring their children out to learn and have a nice day at the park.

“It’s a fun day out for the family,” Fedor said.

Leading Saturday’s program will be between 8 and 10 staff members from the PFBC’s Northeast Region including a pair of biologists.

For more information on the family fishing festival, visit www.TakeMeFishingPa.com.

There you will find registration information and additional information about the fishing festival.
Space is limited and there will be no registrations accepted on the day of the event.