Hometown Weekly Staff
Needham family and friends gathered at the Needham Reservoir Trail on Dedham Avenue behind the Needham Public Service Administration Building for a day of fishing and fun at the town-favorite Rollie’s Family Fishing Festival.
This annal event was great opportunity for residents to come and enjoy the sport of fishing regardless of your fishing skills. This was a perfect learning experience for beginners, a reunion for seasoned fishing pros or a just a chance for anyone who might have ever wanted to fish, but may not have the know how, equipment or an opportunity.
This family-friendly event was perfect for the whole family, especially those with younger kids. The easily accessible trail around the reservoir created back in 2017, is the perfect location for this event. Kids and their families could be seen spaced all around the Reservoir, hoping to catch one of the 350 rainbow trout Park and Recreation stocked the pond with earlier in the week.
Over 120 people signed up for the event, but many others joined the festivities on what was a beautiful 70 degree Saturday morning, perfect for fishing. For those without equipment, Park and Recreation provided everything residents needed to enjoy the day. 25 fishing rods (lent to the festival by Mass Wildlife), bobbers, hooks and roughly 200 gigantic night crawlers worms were handed out to use as bait. Also on hand ware plenty of free fishing advice from helpful Park and Recreation volunteers and long time Needham resident Rollie himself who was quick to untangle a fishing line, bait a hook or share some helpful fishing tips.
Whether participants caught a fish or not, no one walked away empty handed. There were plenty of fishing themed give-aways like stickers, bracelets and key-chains. Mass Wildlife provided handouts and educational pamphlets on where to fish in Massachusetts, state fishing rules and regulations and guides on identifying different fish species.
And if you were really lucky, you got to keep your leftover worms.
