Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department Hosts Annual Youth Fishing Rodeo

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Sunday is Father’s Day and the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department held their annual youth fishing rodeo to give kids a chance to spend time with their fathers.

For some of the children attending the rodeo, it was their first time fishing and their odds were pretty good. The ponds are stocked with thousands of pounds of catfish each year.

The kids were limited to 6 fish each during the rodeo.

“When we got here as soon as we started putting our baits in the water, we started catching fish and we were basically the first ones done so them the other people around us weren’t really catching fish so we were helping them catch fish,” says Mylee Beauffort.

Several of Roy Rodgers grandchildren traveled from mobile to join him at the rodeo.

“They decided they would come here to share this with me and to share father’s day with me,” says Rodgers.

Rogers says he’s trying to teach the children what he’s learned about catching fish in his 63 years.

“I’ve been trying to show them that there’s no harm in putting their hand in the liver and putting the liver on but I’m doing most of the baiting up and and when they break a hook I don’t try to untangle everything, I put my knife on it and cut it and then I show them how important it is to put a good tie onto the hook,” says Rodgers.

“In many cases this is a child’s first opportunity to ever fish so leading up to this even we held too separate fishing clinics to provide skills and resources to those young people to

really be successful in the outdoors,” says Captain Wesley Richerson.

Some of the kids say the rodeo has made them interested ins spending more time fishing.

“I enjoy fishing and it’s a lot of stuff that you got to learn about fishing and I would have much fun to come back and learn more about it,” says Zaniya Singleton.

One little girl says the rodeo is the perfect way to spend fathers day weekend.

“Normally doing the weeks and stuff he’s always work and he works like all day and he doesn’t come home until eleven and then he has to get up again at four-thirty and then go back to work,” says Beauffort.

“I’m hoping that he can get off for father’s day so we can spend a little bit of time with him,” says Maleah Beauffort.

There were youth fishing lessons offered before the rodeo, teaching skills in knot tying tips and identifying kinds of fishing rods.