(cheerful bluegrass music) - Welcome, kiddos, to the 24th annual Buffalo River Elk Festival.

We are down here in beautiful Bradley Park in Jasper, Arkansas, for our annual fishing derby.

And so this is for kids 12 and under.

They get to set up here on the shore at the Little Buffalo, and fish their hearts out.

And fish have just been coming in one after the other.

Lots of squeals of excitement, lots of smiles, and we're just having a great time down here.

One of the great things about the kids' fishing derby is we have some wonderful supporters and sponsors of that, and they donate all kinds of wonderful prizes.

And so we have over a hundred, or we have at a hundred prizes for these guys that are fishing.

The top prize is, the largest fish will get their own kayak.

We have bicycles that are given away.

We have all sorts of neat things, fishing tackle and fishing poles.

And it's just a wonderful, wonderful morning for these guys.

(cheerful bluegrass music continues) A lot of fun that we have here at the Buffalo River Elk Festival, you can see right behind me.

And that is our fun zone, and that's for the young and the young at heart.

So if you've got a grandma or grandpa that likes to jump in there and have fun with you, you can bring them along too.

There's some free face painting.

They're giving out cotton candy, as well as you see that big thing back there that kind of looks funny, it's got the little spikes sticking up.

You can jump on that like a trampoline, and it's got bungee cords, so you can go really high up in the air and flip, and do all kinds of fun stuff.

We've got an obstacle course back there.

We've got GellyBall, and GellyBall's really fun, 'cause I like to do paintball, but it kind of hurts when you get hit with a paint ball.

Well, GellyBall doesn't hurt as bad, and it doesn't make near the mess, so it's a lot of fun.

You can get in there with all your friends.

So another really cool thing to see while you're coming around the Elk Festival is all the arts and crafts.

We have a lot of local artists that come.

Some of them are actually doing paintings and sketches.

Some are doing leather working and things like that.

And you can really see all the things that you can make with your hands, which is really cool.

And maybe one day, you guys would want to try it out for yourself too.

So we've made our way over to the food court, and we've got all kinds of delicious foods over here.

We've got fresh squeezed lemonade and rolled ice cream, and we've also got delicious pizza and funnel cakes, all kinds of good stuff for you to try out here at the Elk Festival.

(cheerful bluegrass music continues) All right, so we are just about to have the Arkansas State Championship Elk Calling Contest.

And so the great thing about that is we have three different divisions.

We have youth, teenagers and then adults that will all take their turns making the sounds that an elk made.

(noise maker squeals) And we've got some great judges, a star set of judges that are going to get up there, (child squeals) and be able to hear for that clarity, and that long draw that's so well known about an elk.

All right, well, thank you kiddos for coming on out to the 24th annual Buffalo River Elk Festival.

We had a lot of fun with you today.

We hope you enjoyed getting to see the sights and sounds.

And hopefully next year, you'll be able to come out, and get some great food for yourself, and enjoy this event on your own.