By Mark Hume with Photography by Nick Didlick

No matter how skilled you become in the art of angling, there is probably no bigger thrill than those first few times a fish took your bait. It didn't matter if it was a bullhead, a carp or a small trout. The sense of that fish tugging on your line or the shock of seeing your bobber suddenly yanked beneath the surface was electrifying in a way that raising a big steelhead to a dry fly or striking a giant chinook never can be.

Getting the splashing fish in to shore, catching it in your hands, holding it and admiring it - all of that was wonderful in a way that never could be replicated, though we might be spending a lifetime trying to relive it. And special too, especially for a kid, was collecting all that neat fishing gear.

What could be more fun than a cigar box stuffed full of shiny lures, red and white plastic bobbers, rubber worms (that never caught anything) and birds' nests of fishing line?

Do you remember the first push button spinning reel? How smoothly it fed the line. Then you upgraded to an open face and felt you were finally becoming like those fishermen in the magazines. And then you saw a fly fisherman on the water ....and eventually knew the thrill of owning your own fly rod....and taking your first trout on a fly you tied yourself.

In the same way, exploring new waters can be incredibly thrilling to beginners - even if they are small ponds, or lakes that have busy highways buzzing past. When you are just learning, even the most humble water can be full of magic. And that's worth remembering if, this summer, you have kids or others in tow who are just learning about fishing.

Many of the fishing lakes close to urban centers are kept alive by government stocking programs. In and around Greater Vancouver, in British Columbia, the government’s fisheries biologists routinely release cutthroat or rainbow trout into urban lakes and ponds. Some of the lakes are largely self-sustaining. In those, the government releases tiny fry, about four centimeters in length, that take three or four years to grow to a catchable size. By the time they are fully grown, those fish are as beautiful and as wily as any wild trout.

But in a handful of lakes, right in the urban area, fishing is possible only because of regular releases of adult fish that have been raised in hatcheries. Fisheries managers refer to those fish as ``catchables'' because they are ready to be taken the minute the hatchery truck pulls away from the lake.

Hard-core fly fishermen look down on catchables the way duck hunters look down on chickens. They will strike any pattern, and they won’t put up much of a fight. But to a beginner they are as exciting as a big wild steelhead or a salmon. They are pretty fish and they serve an important purpose - because they make what would otherwise be barren water very fishable.

The catchables are there to give city dwellers a chance to catch that first trout. They are there for people who are learning, or people who can't get away to the more remote lakes where wild trout dwell, or for people who don’t fish very much and don’t have high skill levels. They are there for kids with cigar boxes full of tangled fishing tackle.

Catchables are cutthroat or rainbow trout of 20 to 25 cm (8 to 10 inches) although in some lakes a few large fish twice that size are released as well. They are not as wary as wild fish. They will take a worm dangled on a hook beneath a bobber or fished on the bottom. They will take a fly of just about any shape or color, as long as it's not too big. And they will chase small, spinning or wobbling lures.

Cutthroat and rainbow trout both have silver sides, white bellies, green backs and they are speckled with black spots. But you can always tell a cutthroat by looking under its jaws -- where you'll find two red slash marks.

Wild trout have a small fin, called the adipose, located on the back just before the base of the tail. In hatchery fish, in British Columbia and many other jurisdictions, the adipose has been clipped off. If you are going out with beginners, to fish for catchables, tell them beforehand that if you catch a trout that has its adipose fin, you will let it go, because it is wild and rare and special. They may feel disappointed to let it go, but then again, they may feel very lucky to have caught a wild fish. You can tell them it will spawn and will help keep the lake's natural fishery alive.

There are other types of fish you might encounter in an urban lake. All of them are a lot of fun, and are pretty enough in their own ways. They include black crappies, carp, brown bullhead and northern squawfish. Some of those fish have very small mouths, so if you are getting nibbles but not catching, go to a smaller hook size.

Urban lakes in the Greater Vancouver area that are routinely stocked with catchable trout are: Alice, Edith, Fawn, Stump and Brohm, all in Brackendale; Browning, in Britannia; Como, in Coquitlam; Gates, in Birken; Hayward, in Mission; LaFarge (Coquitlam Pit), in Coquitlam; Mike, in Maple Ridge; Rice, in North Vancouver; Rolley, in Ruskin; Sardis Pond, in Sardis; Sasamat, in Ioco and Trout Lake, in Vancouver.

Other lakes that have been stocked in the past with fry or fingerling trout include: Latimer (Surrey Pit), in Surrey; Mill, in Abbotsford; Salsbury and Stave, in Mission; Weaver, Wolf and Wood, in Errock and Whonnock, all in Whonnock.

For locations in your area, ask at your local fishing tackle store. For catch and possession limits, as well as any special regulations for specific lakes, ask at the store for a free copy of sport fishing regulations.

You don’t have to go far to find a catchable. In many places you can find them right in the city, or not far outside. It’s worth keeping in mind, next time a kid, or a friend who’s just learning, asks if you could take them out for a day. Who knows, you might see them catch their first fish - and that will bring back a lot of memories.

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