St. Cloud Gears up for Community Picnic at Lake George [VIDEO]

ST. CLOUD -- St. Cloud is celebrating the Governor's Fishing Opener with a community picnic, The Opener by George.

The picnic will be Friday afternoon at Lake George. St. Cloud Rotary Club member, Troy Fritz says the event will feature great music, beer, and free food.

"From 4-8:00 p.m. is when the community picnic is, the Governor and other dignitaries will speak from about 4-4:30 p.m. to the crowd. And then at 4:30 p.m. were serving a free meal which is Pilgrim's Pride chicken meatball marinara hoagies with chips and cookie. Then we've got GB Leighton playing, Beaver Island's bringing the beer truck down, we'll have beer."

About 8,000 people are expected to come out to the event. John Libert is with the Governor's Fishing Opener Committee he says the picnic is just one of many activities that will make St. Cloud stand out as a host city this weekend.

"Traditionally a lot of people have been going to these fishing openers for years and years and years. Typically the golf has always been on Friday, we moved it to Thursday to give more opportunity to that. Our food is a little different, they usually have fried fish on Saturday afternoon for a shore lunch, we're having fish tacos from DB Searle's. We're breaking the rules, the governor's staff and Explore Minnesota are loving it."

Governor Dayton will be heading out on the Mississippi River Saturday morning. The fishing kick off is scheduled for 8:00 a.m.