Families flock to Carleton Catch-A-Thon
Carleton’s Catfish Catch-AThon saw families flood the kid fishing pond at Johnson Branch on Saturday.
After the tornado last May forced the event, meant to be annual, into an impromptu hiatus, it returned on Saturday to allow local kids to take up a reel and pull in their fill, both of fish and prizes.
“We want as many people as possible going away with something, even if they didn’t catch fish,” Park Superintendent Scott Eager said. “A big thanks to Bass Pro and Cabela’s. They’ve been a big supporter of prizes, them and HEB have been our two main supporters for events like this. We wouldn’t be able to hold this without them.”
In addition to raffles every 15 minutes, families were allowed to keep anything they caught, even if it wasn’t quite big enough to be a keeper on the lake proper.
“You don’t have to have a fishing license, because you’re in a state park, and the normal regulations as far as size that apply on the lake don’t apply in the pond because we have an exemption,” Eager said. “We stock the pond just for these events, so we encourage them to take the fish home.”
Families like the Kings took full advantage of the free fishing but kept their standards in line with normal regulations.
“We’ve caught more fish, but if they’re smaller, we let them go,” Dalton King said. “We want to harvest good eating fish, which are usually 14-16 inches. We caught some little ones, but we’re throwing them back out there.”
Dalton saw the event as an opportunity to get his entire family outside in nature for a few hours, bringing along his uncle, father and wife in addition to their two kids, ‘Hambone’ Cameron Hill King and Weston Parks King.
“We love being outdoors,” Dalton said. “The boys love fishing, well really they love catching, but love being outside, and we saw this event on Facebook and were super excited to come out today.”
Though his boys tended toward only holding the reels when there was something on the line, both Hambone and Weston were responsible for carrying the fish over to the measuring station and presenting them to the rangers.
“Anytime we go out anywhere, we take the opportunity for these kids to take accountability for themselves,” Dalton said. “If we go to a gas station, they pay. If we’re walking into the grocery store, they say hi. It’s all about them being their own person. They’re country raised kids.”
Though the Kings were hitting it big on the water, they spread the love where they could.
“Earlier we were hitting really hard on shrimp, so we were giving other people shrimp because it’s not just about our kids, it’s about all the kids,” Dalton said. “I have not been to the Johnson Branch side before. When I was a kid, my dad took me to the Isle du Bois side, so this is the first time we’ve been on this side of the park and it’s gorgeous. I think it’s awesome they’re doing this, especially today, which is Free Fishing Day for the State of Texas.”
The Kings were joined by numerous other families with kids ranging from toddling age to 16. Though the fishing was for the kids, most families followed the trend of the parents hold the reels and bait the hooks when the kids wonder off, letting them enjoy all the “catching” and as much of the “fishing” as they wanted.
“A lot of times this is the first fish they’ve ever caught, so we want that,” Eager said. “It gives the kids a taste of what it’s like to catch your own food, and they get to see where it comes from.”
He explained the pond at Johnson Branch is the lake’s best in terms of accessibility thanks to help from the Eagle Scouts and its proximity to the Nature Center parking lot.
“This is the only pond certified to stock that has this much accessibility at Ray Roberts,” Eager said. “We have three like it, but this one is the closest to the parking lot and we’ve made some ADA improvements.”
He pointed out several Eagle Scout projects including the walking bridge which spans a gap where the pond runs off as well as several fish habitats in the water.
Following the fishing of the day, the park also hosted an outdoor picnic, including hot dogs and S’mores to round out the Saturday morning in nature.
