Whittle: Learning to fish

By DAN WHITTLE

What: Smyrna resident John Stuart’s 12th annual Fishing for Kids coming up the morning of Sept. 20, a Saturday, when children from the Smyrna Boys & Girls Club learn to fish.

Where: Area 2, Long Hunter State Park, 2910 Hobson Pike. Kids fish from the pier of Area 2, in the 110-acre pristine Couchville Lake that formed by accident through sink holes and caverns when the massive Percy Priest Lake was formed in 1960s.

“With the fishing pier it’s ideal, because no motor boats are allowed on the little lake,” angler Stuart angled.
Teen-agers, headed by Jeff and Ang Brookman from Parkway Baptist Church in Smyrna, will help bait and get the fish off the hooks. Pat Whittle, of Action Homes, is donating costs for the bait and fishing equipment.

“And we’re mighty thankful Bass Pro folks in Nashville have donated 50 new rods & reels this year,” credited Fishing for Kids’ namesake Stuart. “And we’re excited that Logan’s Roadhouse, headed by Steve Nagy in Smyrna will be cooking and supplying hotdogs and hamburgers for the kids.”

It’s a possibility John Stuarts’ music-making son, Marty Stuart, can be on hand, along with daughter, Jennifer Stuart, to help bait hooks and haul in fish for the excited children.

“It blesses my heart each year to see little children with all their excitement when catching their first fish of life,” John Stuart acknowledged at age 81.