One of the final activities for Bell Tower Festival is the traditional Kids’ All-American Fishing Derby.
Greene County Conservation Director Dan Towers says there will be three age divisions with 5-8, 9-12 and 13-16 year-olds. He points out that they have about $1,000 in prizes to give out to participants.
“It’s a contest for the longest fish. We go through several place winners on that with the different age groups. After that we draw names out of a hat to distribute out the prizes. Again, everyone there ends up winning something.”
The contest will be at Spring Lake Park with registrations at 1pm, with the contest to follow. Towers says they will have fishing gear on hand for those that may need it.
“Most people do bring their own, but we do have bait on hand. ENR Bait that has a bait machine there, he always brings a bunch of nightcrawlers. We have fishing poles that they can check out if you don’t have one. So don’t feel like you can’t come if you don’t have the equipment because we have those that we can lend to you for that day.”
He adds that an average of 100 kids participate in the annual free fishing derby.