When Adalay Pèrez, fourth grader at Wayne Tanaka Elementary in Las Vegas, was working on her entry for this year’s Free Fishing Day Poster Contest she wanted to include things that showed how much she loved her home state of Nevada. So after she drew a nice picture of two people catching fish, she added a desert bighorn sheep, the state animal of Nevada, and a mountain bluebird, the state bird of Nevada. “I wanted to represent the state,” she would tell her teacher.

    Well now her picture will “represent the state” as the winner of the 2018 Nevada Free Fishing Day Poster Contest. Her artwork will be used for NDOW’s Free Fishing Day poster, which is sent to all of the schools in the state as well as NDOW offices as a reminder about Free Fishing Day. Her work will also be displayed in the 2018 Nevada Fishing Guide.

Free Fishing Day will take place on Saturday, June 9. The statewide event allows anglers to fish any public fishing water in the state without a fishing license or trout stamp, while all limits and other regulations apply. Visit www.ndow.org to find out more about Free Fishing Day events taking place locally.

    While Pèrez was very excited to find out she had won, reportedly running outside to tell all of her friends on the playground, her teacher might have been even more thrilled. “I was so excited I was jumping up and down,” said Erica Jordan, fourth grade teacher at Tanaka Elementary. “She is a good student and an incredible artist. She worked very hard on her picture, so this is very well deserved.”