Two NWA Men Fish Beaver Lake for 24 Hours Straight

Jason Cossey and Jeff Burns have been out on Beaver Lake since 7 p.m. Friday, battling the rain and wind. It’s all for the Recycled Fish 24-Hour Fish-a-Thon.

“We are trying to raise money and awareness for people to take a little bit better care of our lakes and waters and it just doesn’t go with that, this is a nation-wide thing, every state has somebody in it,” Cossey said.

Cossey and Burns are the only Arkansans participating this year, they call themselves ‘Team J and B.’

A portion of the money raised will go toward improving Beaver Lake.

“We started yesterday at 7 o’clock, I have raised hourly money and the money that I have raised, half of it comes back to our lake, our state, and the other half goes to the national level, the Army Corp of Engineers,” said Cossey.

As if staying awake for 24 straight hours wasn’t grueling enough, ‘Team J and B’ faced torrential  downpour, extreme wind and drastic temperature changes.

“The weather hasn’t cooperated and a cold front came in and we had the rain and we have just been trying to do what we can do,” said Burns.

On a normal six hour fishing trip Cossey said he typically catches about 75 fish but that was not the case this time around.

“I think we have caught probably 10, it hasn’t been a very good fishing day,” he said. “Last night wasn’t a very good fishing night. Usually I can catch them all night long and it didn’t work out that way last night.”

When the team did catch a fish, they measured it, took a picture of it and set it free.

The competition ends at 7 p.m. Saturday.

Here’s a link with more information: http://www.recycledfish.org/our-programs/fish-a-thon-2012/team-j-and-b.htm