Junior Ponds

[rc@hinze]

After our recent trip to Modunran with the young boys, I was reminded of something that I saw in July while visiting Lake Tahoe in the USA.

At Tahoe they had set aside a dedicated pond for junior anglers just back from the main lake. Only kids up to 14 were allowed to fish there and it was kept well stocked of young trout etc so that kids who went fishing there would probably end up landing some fish. One of the dads I spoke to said they also held junior comps there and before the comp they give it a good stocking so that fish are caught by many of the participants.

I see so many kids having a go but the odds are often against them because of their ability and or the prevailing conditions they often find themselves in. It was great watching these kids and their erratic yet effect retrieves (Leigh 77 once commented on this type of retrieve in a post) land these small trout.Our bass and barra are still very aggressive in the juvenille stages and would be ideal for this type of fishing. Obviously there would be issues with size limits, taking fish, fish growing and eating new fish etc.

It would be great if this idea of “kids ponds” could be located at some of our popular impoundments for our kids. Maybe in could be an extension of current fish stocking programmes. Anyhow just a plug for something which I thought was a great idea.

-Richard-.

[Cammy]

Seems liek a very good idea,i dunno why they havent tried it over here. I guess because of the fish species as mentioned above, what about wollies and coles they get to have like 35cm barra wit hardly any meat on them and yes i know they have a permit to do that, but mabye the same laws could be converted to one of these ponds? Im pretty sure the barras will grow fast and reach a stage of 35cm easily.

Cam