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  • Fishing Camp helps players identify fish, fishing equipment and more. Special to the Record-Eagle

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February 5, 2012

Northern People: Learn about fish playing

Eastport co. adds Fishing Camp to its line

By JODEE TAYLOR jtaylor@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — Do you know a walleye from a sunfish? A salmon from a trout?

By the time you play Fishing Camp, you'll have a better idea.

The game, made by Education Outdoors in Eastport, has questions, fun facts and different levels so all ages can play, said Tim Paczesny, founder of the company.

"There's nothing on the market that 4- to 6-year-olds can play with mom and dad," he said. "With our game, sometimes the 4- to 6-year-olds beat you."

Because the game, one of nine products the company makes, is based on knowledge levels, a grown-up may be at Level 1 and the child could be a Level 3, Paczesny said.

Education Outdoors was created in 2005, inspired by a free fishing event Paczesny and his "League of Extraordinary Outdoorsmen" put on every year on Intermediate Lake, where Paczesny lives. The first game, Camp, was a way to help people learn more about the outdoors in general, partly because one of his friends didn't know what a buck rub was and his daughter didn't recognize a raccoon track.

Camp has done "really, really, really well," Paczesny said, and is available at stores around the country. Fishing Camp will be too, helped by a deal with Bass Pro and Gander Mountain stores. Paczesny's especially pleased that Fishing Camp is manufactured in Michigan by EPI in Battle Creek. When Camp came out in 2006, no Michigan companies had the equipment to make it, he said.

Education Outdoors now employs five people including Paczesny, plus independent sales reps around the country. If you order a game off the company's website it will be shipped from the nearest store, Paczesny said, as a way to support the local retailers.

Besides learning how to identify different species of fish, Fishing Camp helps players know equipment, including a question that features Paczesny's own boat: Q: What's pictured above? A downrigger? A planer board? A cannonball? (A: It's a downrigger, which Paczesny uses during the fall on Lake Michigan, off the coast of Charlevoix. The rest of the year, his 17-foot boat is on Intermediate Lake.)

Paczesny's favorite question is about the location of the world's biggest walleye statue, which is in Garrison, Minn. "I'd like to get my picture taken with that walleye," he said.

For more information about Fishing Camp or other games and products, go to www.educationoutdoors.net.

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