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Ponds in Agoura Hills are stocked with fish for people to catch and take home for dinner
Wait for a tug on the line
Photo by Karen Quincy Loberg
Four-year-old Will Markel of Toluca Lake makes a day of fishing with his family including his sister Audrey Markel, 7, and his father, Jim Markel. One pond is stocked every two weeks with 1,000 bluegill, the other with 600 to 700 1-pound trout.
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Fishing at Troutdale >>
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At the corner of Kanan and Troutdale roads, giant oak trees shade two light green, freshwater ponds. Children with bamboo poles and single drop lines rim the water, like something out of a Mark Twain book.
At Troutdale, $7 gets you a pole, bait and a bucket; you pay for the catch on the way out.
There's something simple and pure about a day of fishing here. No batteries are needed.
Picnic tables, a small office and two fish-stocked ponds make up Troutdale, an Agoura Hills fixture for more than 40 years.
The customers are varied. A grandfather and grandson are among the anglers at one of the ponds. A woman arrives with a group of autistic children and their aides; a lone person fishes with a more sophisticated pole.
The waiting can try a child's patience. Kane Agar, 4, slips away for a moment to run a stick alongside the trout pond leaving his grandfather, Tom Agar, to fish for him. Conversation is the pastime while people wait for the tugs on their lines.
The other sound is water cascading from the fountain in the center of the two ponds. One is stocked every two weeks with 1,000 bluegill, the other with 600 to 700 1-pound trout.
The owner's son Hovsep Shirikchyan, 11, of Van Nuys, helps out during summer break. Hovsep says he once caught a 29-inch trout there, enough to feed five or six people.
But that may just be a fish story.
Gary Batchley remembers coming to Troutdale for the first time in the early 1980s when he was just 8 years old. Now at 33, he has returned with his 4-year-old son Richard.
While many anglers are thinking about bringing home dinner from Troutdale, his son has a different goal for the afternoon. Richard doesn't want the fish to die. "It's a little bit of an embarrassing story, because most people don't bring them home as pets," Batchley said.
Posted by ScumBuck on August 6, 2007 at 5:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I remember visiting in the early 70's. What a great place for 1st timers
Posted by npwolves on August 7, 2007 at 6:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
If you want to pay 7 dollars for a bamboo stick with a string and hook with canned corn for bait have fun. Hope you catch is not too big because it is not cheap and there is no catch and release policy. It will save you 7 bucks to bring your own pole and corn. It is fun for the kids though.
Posted by wildbill on August 13, 2007 at 7:30 a.m. (Suggest removal)
As an outdoorsman, I grimmace at the sight of this place. This is nothing close to a good first-time fishing experience for kids. The prices are outrageous and the experience itself is totally artificial. Go to a local fishing store and ask for some plastic grubs. Then take your kid to a local beach and let him haul in perch one after another.
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