Hook Line and Sinker

When the weekend temperature in the Valley climbs into triple digits, there’s another place you can take your kids to cool off besides the beach.

With two ponds stocked with trout that patrons can catch and eat, Troutdale in Agoura is the closest thing you will find in Los Angeles County to an old fishing hole.

“Under these oak trees, even though it may be 100 degrees in the neighborhood, it’s still pleasant here,” said Peter DeVries, a former stockbroker and F-4 fighter pilot who bought the recreational facility earlier this year from the Clago family.

“I was a Merrill Lynch branch manager in Beverly Hills supervising 20 people . . . and somewhere I read in a health magazine that when you’re fishing, even if you’re not catching anything, your blood pressure goes down,” he said recently. “Anyway, now I sleep at night.”

In his new place of business, his customers are smiling all the time. Children squeal with delight as they pull in fish after fish that seem to be half as long as the child is tall. That was the case with 3 1/2-year-old Lindsay Husebus of Newbury Park, who stands 28 inches tall and whose first catch of the day--and of her life--was 14 inches long.

“When they leave, they’ll still be happy,” DeVries said. “It’s not like Disneyland where the smile goes away when you leave.”

Most people who visit Troutdale are fishing for their dinner, and usually they are not disappointed. “We caught 16 fish,” said Tyler Fleming, 9, as he and his cousin, Koral Pettlon, 10, handed over their catch to DeVries’ staff to be measured and gutted. “We’re having a barbecue,” explained their uncle, Gabriel Fleming.

The limit is eight trout per person with a charge per fish varying from 95 cents for a 6-inch fish to $8.95 for a 15-incher. A bamboo pole and corn for bait are included in the $3 a person admission fee. You can barbecue your fish and eat it there at picnic tables if you want.

Simply to catch dinner isn’t the only reason people visit Troutdale. A Tarzana-based volunteer group, the Children’s Cast a Line Foundation, regularly takes disadvantaged and disabled children there on weekends to teach them basic angling. Youngsters “who have never been fishing in their life can have an experience where they feel good about themselves,” said organizer Mickey Frankel.

Said Vince Hale, a single father from Burbank who had fished there as a boy and is initiating his son, Kenny, to the joys of fishing, “The fish here are hungry and go for the bait; plus, you don’t have to search all over a big lake to find the right spot. This is the right spot.”

BE THERE

Troutdale, 2468 Troutdale Drive at Kanan Road in Agoura, three miles south of Highway 101. Open weekdays 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Admission: $3 plus fee based on length of fish caught. Call (818) 889-9993.