Free Fishing Day lures beginning anglers

It was hard to tell which was more animated at the Ponderosa Springs Golf Course on Saturday: the flapping fish pulled out of its home by a hook, or the young woman from India who hooked it.

Both were bundles of motion, though. For the Gonzaga student, it was her first catch, and the eight-inch rainbow was soon to become a personal trophy.

“I’m psyched!” said Greena George, who joined other classmates to fish at a pond in the middle of the Coeur d’Alene golf course on Free Fishing Day, when licenses don’t matter and beginners can be of any age. In Washington, both Saturday and Sunday are free fishing days.

At Ponderosa’s pond, an assortment of anglers, both tiny children and their grandparents, ringed the water, lines extended to the center and bobbers hovering on the surface. A steady rain fell, and the occasional strike elicited whoops of excitement.

But for others, like young Madison and Brooklyn Jeppsen, the day was apparently meant for peaceful enjoyment by the stocked pond. Neither of the girls pulled in any fish, but they sat by the pond wearing pink jackets, patiently waiting.

“We’re going to Skippers,” said their grandfather, Ron Sampert, as the free fishing clinic started to wind up for the day. Though their bobbers never dropped below the surface, the young girls were taught an early lesson about the patience of fishing.

“The whole deal is a chance to get these little girls fishing,” Sampert said.

That’s exactly what officials at the Idaho Department of Fish and Game hoped for when they set up the clinic, said Ed Vieth, a volunteer who along with IDFG fish biologist Mark Liter was handing out free tackle boxes with various lures and hooks inside. Fish and Game offered free rods for beginners to use and taught lessons on how to cast, catch and clean fish.

“They might be soaked to the skin, but they’re still grinning,” Vieth said. The free fishing day might encourage more young people to pick up the sport, he said.

“Anytime they catch something, they’re likely to come back,” Liter said. “These kids had so much fun they’re going to drag their parents out and do it again.”

Though the golf course was cleared out and the pond’s fountain turned back on, the day of free fishing continued not too far away on Fernan Lake.

There, with a truck pulled off to the side of the road and a rod leaned against a folding chair, Russ Baker and his girlfriend, Tammy Kendrick, both of Post Falls, braved the sprinkles and waited for the fish to rise.

“You gotta be in the right spot to catch the right fish,” Baker said, positioning the rod and chair rig closer to the edge of a shelf next to the lake.

Baker doesn’t have a license, and Saturday he planned on catching his evening meal. His reasons for fishing are simple: He loves the outdoors, and he’s fished for much of his life.

While he stood waiting for a strike, he reminisced about the first time his father took him fishing. He was 10 years old and caught a king salmon in California.

“Dad would take me out of school and tell them I had a dentist appointment,” he said. “But I didn’t. He’d just take me fishing.”