2025 Take Me Fishin' Derby--volunteers needed

The 17th Friends Take Me Fishin' event, held in cooperation with MassWildlife, the Massachusetts DCR and Fearing Pond Cottage Association, is coming up on Saturday September 27th.

Help us let hundreds of kids and their families try their luck fishing at Fearing Pond.

We need your help to help pull off this event, which is free to participants. Last year, we had 173 registered participants, our high since the pandemic. In pre-pandemic years, we have had as many as 400.

The pond is usually stocked with trout by MassWildlife several days before the event and seems to have an endless supply of bass.

We need many volunteers to:

• Help find prize and raffle donations
• Sort through and set up fishing tackle
• Help set up tents and tables
• Set up photo contest displays
• Help register participants
• Provide instruction in elementary fishing technique
• Hand out fishing tackle and worms
• Supervise craft activities and games for non-fishers
• Sell Friends t-shirts and hats
• Keep the parking lot organized
• Assist with hospitality. We provide water, some snacks and coffee.
• Help with the cleanup

The event starts at 10:00 this year and will be held rain or shine. We are asking volunteers to show up by 8:30 or earlier to get things set up. Fishing will run to 1:00pm, and then there will be awards and raffles (after all the weighing and measuring gets done!). It will probably be 3:00 or so before we are done.

The event is held in partnership with the DCR and MassWildlife.

Please sign up to help us make this free family event a success.

With the generosity of many sponsors, we have been able to award small prizes (fishing tackle items) to all who catch fish and some really nice prizes to the biggest catches of the day.

If you know of a company that would be interested in helping to provide prizes for or otherwise sponsor this event, please contact us at friends@friendsmssf.com or call President John Bescherer at 508-742-7973.