When Wyatt Kingston heard Chesterfield County was about to close a kids fishing program a couple of years ago, the Richmond parks and rec employee saw an opportunity. And Kingston is dogged when opportunity presents itself.
"Bring it to Richmond," he told Kristi Orcutt, who'd been running the event for the county.
That was last year, when about 75 kids showed up at Byrd Park's Shields Lake to take part in a free kids fishing day. Scheduled to coincide with the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries' statewide Free Fishing Days, the event, now called the Family Fishing Fair, is back Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon.
Kingston wanted to tweak the focus this year from just kids to families because he figured everyone stands to benefit from learning their way around a rod and reel.
"I made it the Family Fishing Fair because I think it's very important that if a kid knows how to fish, he and his mother and father can go fishing together," said Kingston, a parks employee since 1984.
His point is astute: If only the kid knows how to fish, who's going to take him or her for an afternoon on the water? Let's be honest, he said, "If the parents don't know, the kid's probably not going to go fishing."
Kingston has organized programs for kids in some of Richmond's roughest locales. He knows how many of those kids could use a skill such as fishing and some time with mom or dad.
"I've worked in some real terrible neighborhoods with some wonderful kids," he said.
Those are the kids he's trying to reach, but in the case of the Family Fishing Fair, he's not doing it alone. In addition to Chesterfield's parks department, the event is co-sponsored by Trout Unlimited, the DGIF, Region 3 B.A.S.S., VirginiaFishingAdventures.com and Green Top Sporting Goods. It's free and open to anyone in the area.
The DGIF and Green Top either loaned or donated all the fishing equipment needed, and groups such as Trout Unlimited will be on hand with volunteers to show families the joy of wetting a line together.
Last year, six members of the local TU chapter volunteered "to come bait hooks and that sort of thing," said chapter member Jason McGarvey.
It's part of a larger effort by the group, he said, to get kids involved in fishing and the outdoors: "We're just trying to get kids connected to nature anyway we can."
That's long been one of Kingston's goals.
In 2009, he was honored by the city with the Jesse Reynolds Award for "outstanding contributions in the area of parks, recreation or community facilities."
Kingston has given thousands of hours of his own time to improve and develop Gillies Creek Park. He cut brush and hauled it away, collected and removed tons of trash and debris and recruited friends and others to help whenever possible. He easily spent more than a thousand hours of volunteer labor working in the park.
Now Kingston plans to introduce fishing to as many kids at city recreation centers as he can. He and nine other parks employees took a class offered by the DGIF on teaching fishing to kids. He envisions fishing and casting competitions between kids at each center.
"I've got a lot of ideas I want to do with the kids to get them involved with fishing," he said.
On Saturday, though, he wants fishing to be the bond between parents and their children.
"I got a couple of calls from ladies wanting to bring their kids, and when I mentioned something about them fishing too, one said, 'Well, I'm not gonna put no worm on no hook.' I said 'Well, there's a lot of other things you can put on a hook besides worms.' But it's very, very important that a parent and a kid can get to do this together."
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