CASTING AWAY! FISHING DERBY ENTRANTS TRY FOR TROUT AND CATFISH.

Byline: David Greenberg Daily News Staff Writer

Tylor Greene sounded more like Santiago, Hemingway's marlin-chasing hero in ``The Old Man and the Sea'' than Huckleberry Finn, the teller of tall tales.

The 10-year-old Simi Valley resident, one of 550 youths casting lines in the 24th annual Huck Finn Fishin' Derby, was dreaming about catching a five-pound catfish he named Big Lester.

``He knows I'm out here,'' said Greene. ``He saw me.''

Big Lester was spotted early in the competition when he leaped out of the Rancho Simi Community Park lagoon, bumping into a duck before disappearing again in the 2-1/2-acre body of water.

Greene bated his fish hook with a nightcrawler sandwiched between two pieces of mackerel.

``It's like a smorgasbord for him,'' he said. ``I just feel it. I'm going to catch Big Lester, the duck knocker. I'm going to cook him and make catfish sandwiches. He'll last a year.''

If Greene's calculation is correct, Big Lester was among the largest of the 1,500 catfish and 400 trout that the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District stocked the lagoon with Friday.

Youths 15 and under lined the shore, casting their fishing lines over the shoulder with the hope the hook would catch a fish, not one of the branches hanging off trees embedded in a center island.

``You get tangled up,'' said Cody Haag, 10, of Simi Valley. ``You try to cast straight and tell everybody else to cast straight.''

A groups of ducks, paddling their way toward the humans for what they believed was food, miraculously avoided getting hooked.

Jessica Ebert, 12, of Simi Valley, offered her definition of ``girl power'' by proclaiming herself as good a fisher as any boy present. Toward the end of the three-hour event, Ebert learned her 9-year-old brother Michael had caught three fish while she had none.

``That's because my brother's lucky and I'm not,'' she explained.

With prizes awarded for the biggest catches, some of the participants had a tendency to embellish the size and numbers they have caught in the past.

``A more proper term would be `exaggerate','' said Doug Gale, the district's recreation supervisor. ``They're excited about catching fish. We give prizes, but it's the enjoyment of fishing we're trying to promote.''

Daniel Benson, 10, of Simi Valley, gave up after a half hour and spent the rest of the morning tossing a Nerf football with his brother.

``I didn't think we'd get any fish,'' he said. ``There are thousands of people here . . . well, maybe hundreds.''

When Gale sounded the whistle signifying the end of competition, Big Lester still had his freedom.

But there is always tomorrow.

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color) Dallas Jones holds one of his Saturday's catch before throwing it back. It is too small to be a keeper. Dallas was one of more than 550 youths who participated in the 24th annual Huck Finn Fishin' Derby at the Rancho Simi Community Park lagoon.

(2) Kids crowd the shore Saturday as they attempt to catch the catfish and trout that were put in the lake. As baited lines were cast in the water, some became tangled. But that's all part of the game.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News