DAPHNE, Ala. — Daphne East Elementary School special needs teacher Jodi Harmon was hesitant to take her class of special needs students on a fishing excursion.

“I didn’t even want to go …. I am thinking, with that mother instinct, they are going to fall off the pier, and I am thinking hooks are going to go into eyes…,” Harmon said. “We talked a lot about how to be safe with the hooks and you can’t play in the water. I was dreading it. But, I knew the kids would like it, so I did it.”

Harmon eventually realized she was being overprotective, however, and was pleased by how the experience affected her students.

“The kids had the best time with it,” Harmon said. “They worked together, they were so kind to each other and some of them had never been fishing. It was just a day of fun and they got to do something that none of them have ever done before.

Daphne Police Department Cpl. Donald Bettner recently took students fishing to a private lake in Spanish Fort. Bettner plans a fishing trip every year, but this is the first year that Harmon’s class was invited to attend. High school students are usually the guests of honor on the fishing trip.

Harmon said she was grateful her students got to go this year, and everyone is eagerly anticipating the trip next year.

“This was our first year to be invited. We will do it year after year after year,” Harmon said. “They are all excited.”

Harmon prepared her students for the trip beforehand.

“Before the (trip), we talked about freshwater fish and fish from the beach. Most of them have just been down to the beach. We talked about fish safety and different kinds of fish and fish parts…. So they would know when we got down there,” Harmon said. 

The students in Harmon’s class caught more than 100 fish, she said. Isaiah Featherston caught 41 fish on his own.

“He was so excited. When he got about 15, every time he caught one he would say ‘I got one!’ and he would start doing this dance; we called it the fish dance. He danced for every fish that he caught,” Harmon said.

Featherston may have caught a lot of fish, but he also made a new friend. On May 25, he told his grandmother, “I have to get a picture with my new friend Officer Bettner.”

Harmon said the odds may have been in their favor, but the kids had the time of their lives.

“That pond must have been stocked…. the fish were just biting. It was awesome,” Harmon said.

The fishing excursion ended with a fish fry at school.

The excursion certainly had an impact on the students, whose excitement was evident.

Days later, Joey Kunstmann was still excited about the fish he caught.

“I liked fishing. It was fun,” he said.

“This is something they will remember forever. When we got back, it was all they could talk about….. It introduced them to a whole different world, to things they have never seen before,” Harmon said.

Bettner planned the annual trips 10 years ago because of his love of fishing, and he has been sharing this pastime with children ever since.

“I was born and raised on a fishing camp. I fished my whole life and hunted. Fishing and hunting are the most important thing you could take a child to do,” Bettner said.