Andrews residents and city workers have “gone fishing”

ANDREWS, Texas (KOSA) - Last week Lakeside Park in Andrews flooded from the storms that hit.

“Our boss gave us a call and said ‘hey we’ve got a special job for you’ and it’s definitely something special we ain’t seen nothing like this before,” said Andrew City Worker Jaytodd Wilson.

Wilson and his co-worker Brycen Diaz were called to help clean up what they thought was just water.

“I thought we were just gonna come up here and pump the water out and then they said we got to fish a little to get some of the fish out of here. I only thought it was gonna be like 15 fish and it ended up being so much more,” said Diaz.

The two rescued about 200 fish, not including the number some local children helped catch as well.

“We’ve caught about 50 to 80 probably and we’ve just been catching them all day it’s crazy,” said 12-year-old Austin Dawson.

Dawson and his friend, 9-year-old TJ Reed spent the day hard at work.

“We go fishing at the lake but it’s nothing compared to this,” said Dawson.

The way the  water flows makes  it hard for the fish to go back the way they came, through the pipes.

“One of our buddies back there he’s been getting in the gutters and fishing them out with his hands and all that their just coming out and stuff and we’ve just been being patient and catching them with our nets,” said Dawson.

Most of the fish were alive and placed in buckets to be put back in the lake across the street.

“This is the best day! I like  cleaning and doing stuff like that and we’re here with with some friends too so it’s real enjoyable,” said Reed.

Many of the residents hadn’t seen rain like that in Andrews for a while, let alone fish.

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