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Community Corner

A Fish Named 'Plop'

Area children and their parents stopped out to Barbara Key Park for the Lake in the Hills Sportsman's Club's free fishing clinic Sunday.

It was a team effort for 5-year-old Gavin Johnson and his mom Saturday at the Lake in the Hills Sportsman’s Club's fishing clinic.

After Gavin Johnson reeled in a bluegill, his mom Megan Johnson helped him get the hook off and his fish into a white bucket filled with pond water.

It would be a hot day. But the morning was still cool as they strolled from the pond to the picnic shelter in so they could record the catch.

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“Are you having fun?” Megan asked her son on their way to the shelter. “I’m having fun, too.”

“The fish I caught, I’m going to name it ‘plop!’” Gavin told his mother.

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The free fishing clinic attracted about 75 kids on a sunny Sunday morning the pond at Barbara Key Park. The pond offered clear water full of bullfrogs, bass, crappie, catfish and bluegill.

Megan Johnson said the key to teaching her son to fish was patience.

“He wants to throw it out and pull it back in right away,” she said. “We tell him to wait and watch the bobber.”

Eight-year-old Morgan Johnson, Gavin’s sister, had the biggest fish caught that day as of 10:30 a.m. Sunday—an 8-inch bluegill.

Sue Novak, of the LITH Sportsman’s Club, said every child that day would get a prize, including a backpack filled with water bottles, fishing tackle and a squirt gun that looked like a black-and-white orca.

“We wanted to make the fishing clinic less a competition and more a day you could spend with your family,” Novak said.

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