ASF’s “Magic on the Rivers” Guide Now Available!

Fish Friends Coordinator

Hot off the presses: ASF’s “Magic on the Rivers” guide was published in July 2019 and is a great resource for Fish Friends schools and allies!

“The purpose is to assist those teaching young adults the pleasures of salmon and trout angling. It does so in light of the need for these 21st century anglers to practice conservation ethics that match the needs of the rivers and the fish.” 

While the entire 126-page resource is full of educational gems, Fish Friends participants may find Modules 3, 5, and 6 most applicable.

You can download the whole thing by visiting our Participant Resources page. Let us know how you use it!

Testimonials from 2019 Fish Friends Participants

Fish Friends Coordinator

This is our 26th year doing the Fish Friends project. We are so thankful to those of you that keep this program going! It is the highlight of our students’ Academy Hill School experience!

Academy Hill School teacher

Fish Friends provided my class with a valuable learning experience. My students were interested and involved all the way through the process. We had amazing support and teaching from our mentor.

Cornville Regional Charter School teacher

I’ve been doing this program for years. It is important for students to learn about our natural world, understand, and take care of it, for the benefit of the animals and survival of the planet. Every creature matters and it our responsibility to be good stewards.

Great Salt Bay School teacher

I can talk all day about how salmon develop and the challenges that they face here in Maine, but feel like I don’t really get through to students. However, once we had the eggs in our classroom, students really started to put the ideas together and truly understand what was happening. Thank you for the opportunity to share this with my students!!

Hampden Academy teacher

Our school has participated in this program for over 20 years. The students still get just as excited watching the salmon grow and participating in their release.

Indian Island School teacher

Raising salmon is high interest – anything I connect to the salmon gets 100 percent of the kids’ attention. This is a very valuable program.

Margaret Chase Smith School teacher

Fish Friends helped learning become fun, engaging and exciting again!

Sacopee Valley Middle School teacher

Our students loved watching the salmon hatch and taking care of them. It was really powerful to bring them to the river and release them. The students felt empowered to make the world a better place.

Saint George School teacher

Fish Friends and the salmon hatchery provide an awesome educational experience for students (and educators), who are in need of repeated exposure to the natural world during an impressionable period in their lives. This is likely their first chance to see the beating heart of a vertebrate embryo!

Yarmouth Elementary School teacher

Dedham School and Fields Pond Audubon Fish Friends Program WABI TV 5!

Fish Friends Coordinator

“The second grade students raise the salmon in their classroom and about three months later release them. Each year, the second graders raise the salmon for several months until they are ready to swim on their own. The seventh graders were there to help.”

Read more and watch their TV feature here!

Dedham School Fish Friends Program in the Bangor Daily News!

Fish Friends Coordinator

“Grayson Spalding, 7, explained the journey that the salmon fry faced after being released, one by one, into the stream: “They start out here at the Segeunkedunk Stream, then they’re going to go to the Penobscot River. Then they’re going to go to the Atlantic Ocean for three to five years,” Spalding said. “Then they’re going to go back to the Penobscot River. And back here to lay eggs … it’s going to be like a cycle that goes over and over.”“

Read more here!

Hancock Fish Friends Program in The Ellsworth American Newspaper

Fish Friends Coordinator

“Their adventure began at Hancock Grammar School, where they had hatched from eggs in January, and ended at the West Branch of the Union River in Amherst.

The fry were accompanied on the school bus ride by Valerie Sprague’s fourth-grade class. Once they reached the destination, Charlie “the Salmon Man” Kelly used plastic cups to scoop the fry out of the cooler, handing them to students and their teacher to release into the river.”

Read more here!