National Celebration of Young People and Fishing w/e 17-18/09/2022

This week-end saw over 300 young people taking part in this annual celebration event.

This will be the 3rd year that SOTAS junior members have been involved in the celebration. Since the SOTAS Academy was formed in 2021, the numbers have increased as follows :

2020 - 3, 2021 - 15, 2022 - 34

The celebration event follows much detailed planning and preparation aimed at making it fun and enjoyable for everyone taking part and for some quite a competitive element to the match.

Saturday saw 10 of our SOTAS Academy cadets ( 7 to 11 years ) battling it out on the Shropshire Union Canal in Staffordshire and putting in a brilliant performance

Individually one of our cadets , Oliver Flanagan finished in 4th place out of over 90 taking part with a weight of 1.48Kg

( Interestingly the top 3 places in the Cadets were won by the girls ).

Nathan Morris was not too far behind with a weight of 1.23kg.

Eliza Brook and Joel Wood were both awarded with most promising cadet awards with weights of 1.23Kg and 0.97Kg.

Team wise , out of 30 teams one of our SOTAS Cadets teams took 6th spot.

On the Sunday it was the turn of the SOTAS juniors ( 11 to 15 years ).

Over 190 fished the match on the Shropshire Union Canal in Shropshire

Individually, one of our SOTAS juniors , Poppy Bishop , finished in 5th place overall with a weight of 3.650Kg ( Poppy also finished 5th in 2021 ).

Our best weight from the boys came from Seth Leigh.

For the first time SOTAS also entered 3 teams from Saint Peter’s Academy following a number of Let’s Fish events organised with Craig Manifold.

In a new prize category for the Celebration event , Saint Peter’s managed to win the Best School Trophy.

In conclusion , it has been an hectic week-end with some lifelong memories made along the way - everyone of the SOTAS Academy youngsters have stepped up to the occasion and have made the SOTAS coaches and their parents proud of their achievements.

Roll on next year 👍