Parenting & Family Quote by Rex Hunt

It’s not the tidy civic-language of policy so much as the warm brag of a local celebrity who’s figured out how to turn nostalgia into infrastructure. Rex Hunt isn’t selling fishing as a hobby; he’s selling entry into a particular version of Australian belonging. The pride lands not in personal achievement but in an annual ritual that sounds casual and communal, the kind of thing you’d hear at a footy club barbecue: come along, have a go, no pressure.

The phrase “Come and Try” is doing a lot of work. It’s the softest possible invitation, an antidote to the gatekeeping that often shadows outdoor culture. No expertise required, no family tradition needed, no expensive boat implied. Then the line tightens into proof: “20 venues throughout the state.” That’s the bureaucratic flourish that makes the sentiment credible. It signals coordination, reach, and quiet partnership with local councils, fishing groups, maybe sponsors - a whole civic machine disguised as a friendly day out.

The real emotional punch is in “thousands of kids who’ve never been fishing.” Hunt frames the event as a first doorway, a corrective to a modern childhood increasingly indoors, scheduled, screen-lit. The subtext is recruitment, but not in a sinister way: replenishing a culture. Fishing becomes a tool for continuity - of place, patience, and intergenerational knowledge - at a moment when those things feel fragile. He’s proud because he’s not just entertaining an audience; he’s reproducing one.