Accessible Riverbanks: a focus on Adaptive Fishing Programming and Resources
May 6, 2021
This season marks the culmination of many dark and cold days spent behind screens, conversations through Zoom, and the rare and much-appreciated in-person meetings with new collaborators at the Adaptive Outdoor Education Center. Finally, group events we’ve dreamed of are becoming a reality! AOEC is opening up a new facility in Brunswick, Maine this year to the community, and will be home for the Horizons Fly Fishing program. With their team, we’re designed 6-week beginner fly fishing program where participants will learn the basics of fly fishing alongside concepts of conservation, fish handling and mindful interaction in nature, fly selection and fly tying, and put all this knowledge to work on the water in a 3-day fishing retreat. With one session already full, registration is now open for Session I starting June 2nd.
photo description: a confluence of the collective and AOEC logo to represent the Horizons Fly Fishing program
Since last fall, it’s been an immense joy to see AOEC’s new center take shape. The space will hold large and smaller group events all centered on engaging with nature, in as many ways as possible. With an extensive range of activities already offered through AOEC, connecting the dots for fly fishing to join the roster has been a collective effort, and will incorporate many voices from the local community to share knowledge and build connection.
If you know someone or. you yourself would like to get out on the water through this program, be sure to complete registration on the AOEC website.
Above are a few quick photos taken this week amidst fly box prep and audio tests! Photo 1: Entrance to the new AOEC Brunswick, ME facility photo 2: inside the event space equipped with incredible sound system photo 3: Lily, a very helpful coworker for the day photo 4: the AOEC lot, now filled with construction vehicles and AOEC van, ready for summer programming.
Beyond in-person programming, we’re excited to be prototyping an Accessibility Mapping resource for fishing trip planning. This project will host community-generated reviews of fishing sites, centering the information needs of anglers with disabilities. Beyond the fishing community’s exclusive tradition of secret honey holes, anglers with disabilities face significant barriers in understanding if a site will be accessible to them, beyond what anglers with full mobility may be able to navigate. This site will offer mapped points provided by on-site reviews looking at terrain, elevation, nearby facilities, seasonality, and more to provide a detailed sense of what a site may look like, and hopefully save many anglers the time, effort, and energy of physically scouting fishing options only to find the water out of reach.
This project will take a lot of time, and only improve as we go and more people participate in evaluations. Thankfully, community member Cade Kloberdanz is leading the way in testing out process on nearby waters to him in Colorado.
Photo description: a few samples from our process testing out on the Uncompaghre river, as seen through the eyes of Cade. While the site will offer map points, users will be able to click into more detailed site pages to get a better sense of access.
Stay tuned for more as we continue work with programmers and community, and get in touch if you want to be a part of bringing this resource to life: us@confluencecollective.org