Cast of Hundreds in Simi Valley : Recreation: Young anglers get their feet wet at the annual Huck Finn Fishing Derby.

Store-bought shark meat was too tempting for the catfish swimming in the lake Saturday at Rancho Simi Community Park.

Forty minutes after the start of the 20th annual Huck Finn Fishing Derby, 8-year-old Dana Bocci had reeled in three of the stout and whiskered fish to take one of the top prizes.

“We should have had our limit even earlier,” said Mike Bocci, Dana’s father, who bought the white steak of shark for bait. “We missed a few of them.”

Nonetheless, Dana walked off with an 8-inch trophy declaring him one of the fastest catfish fishermen in Simi Valley. He caught his limit in less than an hour.

“I’m going to put it with my other trophies,” he said, “the ones I won for karate.”

The Boccis were just two of more than 600 people who lined the lake shore at Rancho Simi Community Park by daybreak Saturday to participate in the annual fishing contest, hosted by the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District.

Despite the title of the event, none of the participants fished with the traditional trout lines described by Mark Twain in his classic book, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

“They don’t work as good,” said Doug Gale, the district’s recreation supervisor. “I think they’d be embarrassed to use them.”

By 10 a.m., many of the 2,300 pounds of freshly stocked trout and catfish were flopping in fishing nets or swimming in five-gallon plastic buckets.

“It’s basically just an excuse to stock the lake,” Gale said. “This contest is the only time we stock the lake during the year.”

Gale said the Huck Finn Fishing Derby may not teach the children much about literature, but it exposes them to a fun and traditional sport.

“For a lot of these kids, it will be their first experience catching a fish,” Gale said. “Others though have been coming here for 18, 19 years. Now they’re bringing their kids.”

At the west end of the pond, 4-year-old Aaron Green wrestled a 2.8-pound catfish that had hitched onto his mackerel-garnished fishhook. But it was too much for him to handle alone.

“He snagged it, but we helped him reel it in,” said his aunt, Robin Greene. “He’s caught four already, but I checked and someone had got three fish before he did.”

Twelve-year-old Latisha Chrissinger was one of the few youngsters Saturday who said she had read the Twain classic. But she did not learn to fish from the book.

“I don’t have a secret,” she said, after reeling in a 1.8-pound catfish using chicken liver as bait. “I just throw it in there and they usually bite, or they don’t.”

The prize for catching the limit of five trout the quickest went to 4-year-old Candace Solomon. Between her and her brother, Jonathan Niksarian, they caught seven trout before 10 a.m. The per-person limit of five, however, Candace caught by herself.

“I hooked some of them, but she reeled them in, so I guess they’re hers,” said Jonathan, who with his sister fished with a brand-name bait. He pledged to eat his seven scaly prizes, but was glad to hear that they had only been in the lake for a few days.

“The longer they’re in there, the more stuff they eat,” 10-year-old Jonathan said. “It’s good for them, but then they don’t taste so good.”

A bright blue Florida Marlins cap perched on his head, 13-year-old Darius Ahmadi said the best way to catch fish is to use chicken or beef liver. Although he did not win Saturday, he fondly remembers capturing a prize two years ago.

“It’s just patience,” he said, after pulling up a 1.7-pound catfish on his line. “I just try and throw it away from the other lines and keep away from other people.”

Not everyone was so fortunate. An hour into the Huck Finn Fishing Derby, Jeff Gohl and his 9-year-old daughter, Chenelle, were heading for the parking lot.

“We’ve done this four of five years now,” said Gohl, a Simi Valley aircraft mechanic. “But we’ve never caught one yet.

“People on both sides of us have always caught one, but not us.”