ANAHEIM : Only 1 Fish Shows Up at Kids’ Derby

Standing in the hot sun while casting his line, Alan Carnes was getting frustrated.

“Not a single fish,” he said. “Just only weeds.”

Alan, 8, a third-grader at Schweitzer Elementary in Anaheim, was one of about 150 schoolchildren from Anaheim, Huntington Beach, Orange and Tustin who came out Thursday for the second annual Tri-Cities Junior Fishing Derby (named before Tustin began participating).

Like most of the students, Alan wasn’t even getting nibbles from the wary trout in the Santa Ana River Lakes.

Only one student had caught a fish by noon--and she wasn’t all that thrilled about it. Her family would cook the rainbow trout--”but not for me. I hate fish,” said Francesca Duran, 12, a sixth-grader at Schweitzer.

More than 50 volunteers showed up, ducking to avoid swinging fishhooks as they helped the kids master the fine art of casting.

“I got something, I got something!” shouted George McCann, 9. But it turned out to be a weed on the beach that he caught in an over-enthusiastic backswing.

“Everybody move!” he warned as he prepared to cast again.

“There’s no fish on the beach, George. Leave it in the water a while,” advised a volunteer.

Ken Driftmier, a construction manager for Pacific Bell in Anaheim, brought along several of his employees to serve as volunteers.

“We’re supposed to be having a staff meeting--that’s the best way to get volunteers,” he joked.

“Aahh, you’re killing him,” Alan exclaimed as a volunteer baited his hook with a night crawler. “Why you want to kill the poor worm?”

The event was open to children of any age with physical, language, learning or motor disabilities. Teri Mountford of the Anaheim Parks and Recreation Department, an organizer, said many of the children were fishing for the first time.

Explanations varied as to why the fish released earlier in the morning when the lake was being stocked weren’t biting. Perhaps it was the Anaheim fire engine and talking police car that came by to be romped on and have their sirens tested by the students.

“They saw us put 1,000 fish in here. . . . Probably, there are too many adults helping out,” said Steve Miller, general manager at Outdoor Safaris International, which runs the lakes for the Orange County Water District.

“It’s hot, so the fish have probably gone to the bottom,” Miller added more seriously.

“Some days, they bite real well, other days, it’s slow. Today is slow,” Vern Shields, 72, of Laguna Hills said philosophically.

Shields and other volunteers used lures, cheese, marshmallows and night crawlers to try to gain the fishes’ attention, hoping to pass the line off to a child to reel in if they got a bite. But it was all to no avail.

As the morning wore on and the fish still weren’t responding, Driftmier raised the stakes. “First guy to catch a fish gets next week off,” he announced.

“OK, I’m going swimming!” answered Herb Jansen, 38, of Riverside.