Countywide : Students Reel In Fun During Fishing Day

His white fishing cap askew and his pole bent to the limit, 11-year-old Carlos Martinez smiled as he reeled in a trout at the Santa Ana River Lakes in Anaheim.

“We got one,” the special education student whispered to no one in particular as he caught his first fish. “This is fun.”

Carlos, a fifth-grader at Santa Ana’s Monroe Elementary School, was one of 464 disabled students age 3 to 22 from throughout Orange and Los Angeles counties taking part Friday in the ninth annual Easter Seals fishing day at the lakes. They were assisted by their teachers and more than 300 volunteers.

Steve Miller, who manages the two-lake fishing park in Anaheim for Outdoor Safari International, said his late boss W.D. Ray put a premium on fishing for children. The lakes, which are leased from the Orange County Water District, are among several that take turns playing host to this event.

“When he hired me four years ago, one of the first things he wanted to know is what I planned to do for kids and especially disabled kids,” Miller said. Ray died last year. “We hope that by exposing these kids to fishing, their parents and relatives will see that fishing provides an opportunity for recreation for them.”

School bus after school bus of students pulled through the lakes’ gate throughout the morning. The students’ disabilities ranged from minor to severe. Some have a slight learning disability, while others are severely retarded. Some have no physical limitations, while others rely on wheelchairs.

The volunteers took the students’ limitations into consideration while helping them fish. Baiting the hooks and casting the lines were almost always done by the volunteers. But the students who could held their own poles and reeled in their catches. The fish would later be cleaned and packed by the volunteers so the students could take them home.

It is an outing the students look forward to, teachers said.

“A lot of these kids come from economically deprived homes, and they don’t get the chance to go out and do things other teen-agers do,” said Peter Wilensky, who brought his special education class from Santa Ana’s Mitchell School. “We take them bowling and to any outdoor activity we can.”

The students were spread out around the park’s smaller, children’s lake, which had been stocked with 6,000 trout before their arrival. They were using equipment donated by manufacturers and, as always happens at any fishing hole, some were on their way to catching the limit of five fish, while others were catching nothing.

Ihab Pantjoa, a special education student at Troy High School in Fullerton, had helped his buddy Christopher Parker push his wheelchair to the lake’s edge and he was determined that they would catch a fish. The 17-year-olds’ efforts over their joint pole were going for naught because Ihab was distracted by the hundreds of tractor-trailers barreling past on the Riverside Freeway, which runs about 100 yards south of the lakes.

“In six months, I’m going to be driving one of those,” Ihab, of La Habra, said over and over to just about anyone who happened by.

Todd Henderson, a 21-year-old Troy High School student, said not catching a fish did not bother him. The Fullerton resident has been going to the event for five years, and he has learned that some fishing trips are better than others.

“I want to catch one, but it’s the trying that counts,” he said.