Walleyes Unlimited teaches kids

The Fresno Chapter of Walleyes Unlimited held its Kids Education Day at Fresno Reservoir Friday and gave area students a chance to learn about fishing and fish.

Walleyes Unlimited holds the event every year and invites schools from the area to come and participate. Students from Rocky Boy, Sunnyside, St. Jude Thaddeus and other schools arrived to learn about fishing.

The event was split into five stations at which students spent around 25 minutes learning about one subject and then moved to the next station. The stations' topics were safety, how to work a fishing pole, technology and boats, identifying the various species of fish on the lake and a boat ride around the reservoir.

Steve Chvilicek, the president of the Fresno Chapter, said the event is the biggest program his organization puts on every year.

Chvilicek said the event gives kids the opportunity to learn about fishing and would hopefully make anglers.

He said the goal of the various stations is to provide an all-around base knowledge for the kids if they wanted to continue to fish.

Ron Selden, from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, hosted the station about identifying fish.

In his presentation, he showed the kids figures of different fish and explained how to look for their identifying marks and features and explained why they look the way they do.

"Our goal is, when they catch a walleye or northern, we want them to know what it is they have," Chvilicek said.

Shane Reno was the speaker for the station about water safety. He showed the students the different forms of floatation devices and how to use them, what to do in the event someone is thrown overboard or is drowning and how to avoid potentially life-threatening situations while at a body of water.

The sounds of kids pretending to drown while their peers used the techniques Reno taught them to save them could be heard around the area.

Bob Nelson was at a station explaining technology used to find fish. He explained the use of sonar to find fish and how they could use it to find where in the reservoir fish are most concentrated.

Chvilicek was one of the people taking kids out on the boats to show them his favorite fishing spots on the reservoir and tell them about the area.

"It's amazing how many kids have never been in a boat," Chvilicek said.

He said the walleye fish is the best fish to catch.

"The walleye is the ultimate," Chvilicek said. "It's a very yummy, yummy fish."

He added that the Fresno Chapter's goal is the kids.

"All the money we get, we spend on these kids," Chvilicek said.

After the kids had gone through each station, they were treated to hamburgers and each student was given his or her own fishing rod as a gift from the Fresno Chapter of Walleyes Unlimited. Chvilicek said around 300 fishing rods were given out at the end of the event Friday.