Fishermen Make The Grade
STUDENTS IN CLUB EARNED TRIP TO BEAVER LAKE WITH IMPROVED MARKS
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Cassidy Kendrick, center, caught the first fish of her life Tuesday, a nice-sized striper, during the Springdale Central Junior High School fishing club’s annual outing on Beaver Lake. With Kendrick are club members Mariella Camposeo, left, and Megan Hanson.
Photo by Flip Putthoff
HICKORY CREEK — The chance to catch a whopper fish from Beaver Lake is a proven incentive for students to improve their grades at Central Junior High School in Springdale.
Students in the school’s fi shing club gave the trip high marks after returning from the annual outing on a chilly Tuesday morning. But not everyone in the club qualifi ed to go.
Only students who improve their grades get to go on the coveted fishing trip, said school counselor Ron Duncan, leader of the club.
Eighty-seven students qualifi ed for the trip, held out of Hickory Creek Marina east of Lowell. For some, it is their only chance of the year to go fi shing. Raising grades is an effective enticement. “Some of them were as low as 1.0 (grade-point average) and came up to a 3.0,” Duncan said. Good conduct in class is also a must. “They don’t go if they’ve been knotheads.” Forty-degree weather didn’t faze the students or the 24 adult volunteers who took them fi shing. Catching a big striped bass, the fi rst fish of her life, helped keep ninth-grader Cassidy Kendrick warm.
“I just yelled ‘Fish!’ Then I grabbed the fishing pole and my hands were freezing. I yanked and pulled and out came a fi sh,” she gushed after the trip.
Melody Hunt caught the biggest fish of her life, a striper weighing a fin shy of 10 pounds. Visions of the striper on her wall danced through the student’s head.
She whipped out a cell phone to OK it with her mother. That got the mom seal of approval and the fi sh is on its way to a taxidermist.
Club member Marc Miller caught the largest fish of the day, an 11-pound striper.
Adults were busy cleaning dozens of stripers and a few white bass and crappie for the students. Fishing guide Lee Winkler has helped on the trip for 10 years and said this year’s trip was one of the best for numbers of fish.
Volunteers from the Arkansas Striper Association fixed lunch for the students and adults.
Duncan, who is also a commissioner on the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission, said Tuesday was the 20th anniversary of the Beaver Lake trip. Duncan started the club in 1982.
Brad Wiegmann, a guide who lives on the lake, has never missed a year.
“I get excited as the kid who’s catching the fish,” Wiegmann said. “Every kid has that smile when they catch one that you can’t get from playing a video game.”
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