SEQUIM — The North Olympic Peninsula Chapter of the Puget Sound Anglers is cutting bait on a popular youth event.
The Sequim-based fishing group’s Kids Fishing Day event at the Water Reclamation Demonstration Site near Carrie Blake Community Park that had been scheduled for Saturday has been canceled after increasingly warm weather made it unsafe for fish in the pond, angler group president Bob Keck said.
“A test plant of a limited number of fish was made today [Monday] and a number of fish were lost due to high water temperatures,” Keck wrote to club members.
“With the weather forecast showing warm weather through the end of the week, we are concerned about losing most of the fish that we would be planting,” Keck said.
“We are looking at options to re-schedule the fishing day in September or October after the water in the pond cools down.” The Puget Sound Anglers co-sponsors this event with state Department of Fish and Wildlife and the city of Sequim. The club pays to feed trout donated by Fish and Wildlife, while city staff maintains the pond. The trout are raised at the Hurd Creek hatchery and planted in the pond in the week preceding the event.
Keck said city officials have installed a re-circulation pump expected to aid fish survival in the future. He also said the group is working with state officials to retain the fish which were to be used this month for a future Kids Fishing Day.
The event, hosted by Sequim for the past 12 years, saw about 500 rainbow trout die in June 2017 because of warmer than normal temperatures in the pond.
Annually, the club puts in about 1,800 trout for the first weekend of Kids Fishing Day, the third Saturday of May, and then plants the rest soon thereafter, totaling about 3,000 fish.
For more about the club, event or closure, call Dave Croonquist at 360-582-1370.
