Getting hooked on fishing in Lebanon County with free fishing gear program - LebTown

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With the rise in online shopping, some retailers these days have “try before you buy” programs where customers can sample a product before committing fully to purchasing it.

They’re late to the table.

The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and various partners have given would-be anglers the chance to try fishing with borrowed rods and tackle for years. The idea is to let people fish, without first making a big investment in equipment, to see if it’s a hobby they might adopt on a larger scale, perhaps even for a lifetime.

“You’ve heard the old adage that, ‘if you give a man to fish, you feed him for one day, but if you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime?’ It’s the same concept,” said Mindy Musser, education specialist in the Fish and Boat Commission’s southcentral region office, which covers Lebanon County. “By sharing our resources, we’re able to provide greater service and hopefully get more people fishing.”

The program began in some parts of the country in the late 1990s after research determined lack of equipment was a barrier to recruiting new anglers. It came to Pennsylvania in 2001 with 15 loaner sites, Musser said. Going on 25 years later, there are now more than 120 loaner sites around the state.

“They’re pretty convenient. There’s probably one within a reasonable distance of everyone in Pennsylvania,” said Walt Dietz, aquatic resources education manager for the commission.

The list now includes three loaner sites in Lebanon County: Memorial Lake State Park, Lebanon County Probation Services, and The Academy in Lebanon. All three joined the tackle loaner program in late 2022 or early 2023.

The gear available to borrow at each includes basic closed-face reels and rods, along with small tackle boxes with hooks, sinkers, bobbers, pliers, and even a few lures. Each comes with some educational material on how and where to fish, too. Anglers must provide their own live bait, and those 16 and older need to buy a fishing license (unless they fish on one of the state’s two “Fish for Free” days; one was held on May 25, while the other is coming up on July 4).

The commission, which receives no general state tax dollars but instead is funded through fishing license sales and boat registrations, gets the loaner equipment at a discount from tackle manufacturers. It then gives it to its partner organizations like those in Lebanon County, who in turn make it available to the public.

“It’s like going to your library and borrowing a DVD or a book,” Dietz said. “You sign it out and return it when you’re done.”

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All tackle loaner sites, Dietz said, must do a few common things: loan gear and ensure its return, store and maintain it, promote the program in their communities, and report back on usage. They can also use the equipment to do fishing education and other programs, though.

At Memorial Lake, for example, park staff use the equipment to do public fishing programs several times a year, said Quinn Heist, an environmental education specialist there. He typically sets up a table during the state’s two Fish for Free days, for example. He also conducts several learn-to-fish programs throughout summer to help people who want to try fishing, but need a little instruction as well as equipment. The next one of those is set for 10-11:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 19, at the Lower Road boat launch.

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“If fishing seems daunting and you would like to learn the ropes, we offer programs where you can come out and learn with the rods that you could then borrow again later,” Heist said.

Check the park’s Facebook page or the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources calendar of events for details on that and other events.

Outside of those, though, Memorial Lake’s fishing gear available to whoever wants to sign it out any time it’s available. Heist said the park has 24 rods, plus a few especially small, toddler-sized setups. Borrowers, he added, can use the gear at Memorial Lake – “because it’s great place to boat and fish” – or take it off site to fish elsewhere, for one day or multiple days, so long as it’s not already booked. He suggested checking availability by emailing [email protected] or calling 717-865-6470.

Word of the opportunity is getting out.

“Between the loaner program and fishing programs at the parks, we’ve had over 300 rod uses,” Heist said. “It seems pretty popular. People seem to enjoy it. And it’s a great activity because people really like to teach their kids to fish. It’s a positive environmental experience.”

Lebanon County Probation Services has been using its rods so far mainly to do internal programs, said juvenile unit supervisor Dwight Penberth. Through its First Casts program, it does two “Cops and Bobbers” programs each year, where youths who have come into contact with law enforcement in a negative way go fishing alongside local police, state troopers, and probation officers.

“It’s a bit of a community outreach program for the police departments,” Penberth said.

It’s part of a growing trend. Musser said there are now seven counties with probation services offices serving as loaner sites. That might grow if word of how well Lebanon County’s is working gets around.

Its events are typically held in June and September. At each, officers through Probation Services and staff from The Academy, a treatment provider, get together with youths. The kids fish with one officer in the morning, break for lunch, then fish with a different officer in the afternoon. They play some games, too, having competitions – they get serious, Penberth said – to see who can most accurately cast a weight into a Hula Hoop, for example.

About 40 youths have participated in fishing events so far.

“We’ve gotten some really positive feedback with the kids,” Penberth said. “Some have even made comments to the effect, ‘I didn’t know you guys were real people.’ And the officers were shocked, I think, that they were able to get along and talk to the kids and communicate very well. It’s just been a really positive experience.”

He’s hoping to expand the program this year. He and two other commission-certified fishing skills instructors want to take kids out to do more, and maybe more serious, fishing.

There’s data to suggest such efforts are worthwhile, he noted. Research shows that youths who get into trouble once are more likely to do it again if they don’t have social activities or constructive ways to use their time. Fishing can perhaps fill that void.

“A lot of these kids are on-the-fence interested in it, but by the end of the day they’re having a blast. And it builds a rapport between us and the kids, to have that common ground,” Penberth said.

For all that, Probation Servies and The Academy also make their fishing equipment available for public use for free, just like Memorial Lake State Park. No one’s asked to use it yet, though Penberth said that might be because the word hasn’t gotten out much yet. But that opportunity is there; contact Penberth at [email protected] or 717-273-1557, ext. 5136, or Scott Madl at The Academy at [email protected] or 610-305-0531.

Those who have borrowed equipment in the past often come back to use it again, Heist said. At Memorial Lake, for example, individual families plus scout groups, charter schools and even public schools have arranged to borrow gear and take people fishing.

Some groups even time their borrowing of rods to coincide with times when the Fish and Boat Commission is stocking trout in a lake or stream, Dietz said. They help stock, then fish.

“It’s a neat field trip kind of thing,” he said.

Musser said that’s great to hear. The Fish and Boat Commission can replace gear as needed if it gets broken, she said. That’s preferrable to it sitting in a closet and never getting used. The program is meant to get people – those new to fishing altogether, people visiting an area who don’t have gear with them, and groups interested in teaching people to fish – on the water, after all.

It does that to the tune of thousands of people across the state each year, Dietz said. But he’s always looking to make more anglers, through existing tackle loaner sites or others he hopes yet to recruit.

“We’re not maxed out by any means,” he said. “I wouldn’t say the program is underutilized, but I think there’s a lot of room to see even more use, to be honest.”

If you’re looking for a place to borrow fishing gear, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission has an online map showing the location of fishing tackle loaner sites across the state. They include state and county parks, libraries, probation offices, conservation districts, churches, YMCA camps, and more.

See the tackle loaner site map here.

Anyone interested in becoming a tackle loaner site should contact the education specialist in their closest Fish and Boat Commission regional office (find those on the commission’s website) to start the process.

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Bob Frye is a long-time, award-winning journalist and book author. He’s written for newspapers, blogs, magazines and other outlets, often about the outdoors, but also about history, culture and more. A native of western Pennsylvania, he relocated to the Lebanon Valley in 2020 and now lives in Cleona. More by Bob Frye