Kids go fishing but instead hook loaded gun with ammo

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - Imagine you’re out fishing and you catch a handgun with bullets and two ammo clips.  Three boys fishing on Labor Day in suburban Orlando, near Waterford Lakes, reeled in the weapon.  Joe Corica, a security guard for the Waterford Lakes Community Association, took photographs of the gun and shared them with us.  He was on patrol when he saw one boy cast his line 35 feet out.

“As he’s reeling it into the shore, there’s a large green plastic bag with a Walmart bag inside had broken and some bullets fell out,” Corica said. “It could have gone off. The hammer was cocked.”   There were 37 bullets in all- 380 caliber and there was also a loaded handgun.  He had one thought in mind.  “My first instinct was to get the gun away from the kids right away.”  Corica took the gun and ammunition to his office and called the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. A deputy took it all away.

Ken Zook is general manager of the Waterford Lakes Community Association.  He says Corica was in the right place to prevent a tragedy.   Zook said, “Without a doubt. All it would take is a simple hit against the bank or something and that gun could have gone off.”

There’s a big question now. Why was a bundle of bullets and a handgun in the pond in the first place?  Corica believes the young fishers might have snagged a clue to a crime. “To ditch a gun in a lake in a plastic bag , wrapped up in a wash cloth, with bullets that are loose and loaded clips. Somebody had gotten rid of it for some reason. That’s what I believe."

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office tells FOX 35 they have the handgun, and they are trying to figure out who owns it.