Catchin’ floppy ones

Local kids with disabilities got to expand their horizons by casting a line for prizes at the annual Ol’ Fishin’ Hole Derby in Chris Carr Park recently.

Last week’s event, sponsored by the city Community Services department and the Huntington Beach Kiwanis Club, gives 180 moderately disabled fourth- to eighth-graders a chance to fish all morning. Those with luck — or skill — walked away with awards for heaviest fish caught, while 75 more were handed brand-new rods and reels. Sixty volunteers helped participants bait their hooks and cast their lines as they waited for the telltale feeling of a bite.

Recreation supervisor Dottie Hughes said she sent out invitations to special education classes in all the city schools. She called it a positive experience some of these kids may never have gotten elsewhere.

“It’s really a fun event, a special experience,” she said. “The children get to get outside. A lot of them have never been fishing before, and there’s nothing like the gratification that they get from that.”

Dwyer Middle School seventh-grader Ricardo Rendon held his fishing rod tight as it suddenly dipped into a curve, one of the first bites after Department of Fish and Game employees dumped buckets of catfish into the lake.

“It’s 2 pounds!” he said triumphantly, dangling the flopping fish by a rope after taking it to the weighmaster, then dropping it back into the lake and tethering it to the shore. “It’s the first time I ever did this. I never even fished before.”

He wasn’t the only Dwyer student to get a sizable catch. Classmates attributed their luck to their use of shrimp-scented bait, one of several options available to the kids as well as old-fashioned worms.

It was a remarkable turnaround from a slow start, as a mix-up had Department of Fish and Game workers stocking the lake during the competition instead of before it. But participants took it in stride, and even that setback didn’t prevent them from catching a few things already in the water while they waited.

“Oh, it was slow at first,” Kiwanis Club member Nouha Hreish said at the event. “They actually caught some turtles. But the kids don’t care; they’re having a great time.”

As the fishing derby wound down, kids and volunteers ate burritos donated by Fred’s Mexican Café while trying to snag that last fish. When time finally ran out, some left their fish tethered — while others refused to let their catch out of sight while city staff read out award winners.

Gigi Saporita of Isojiro Oka Elementary School won first place in the competition with her 3-pound catfish. Levi Gorrell of Dwyer Middle School took second, while Lee Lanzini, also from Oka, came in third. Oka took the prize for classroom as well, their total catches weighing in at 8.75 pounds.

Three pounds is by no means the largest catch the derby has ever seen, Hughes said. Sometimes the lake turns up a catch far bigger than anything they stock it with.

“Last year one of the kids caught a 9-pound carp, which we didn’t even put in there,” she said, laughing.