BETHEL — Despite temperatures in the 90s, 75 children participated in last year’s Family Fishing Festival at Angevine Park.

With help from their parents and siblings, they fished for brook trout stocked in the park’s 1-acre pond by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

For Josh Cornish, then 4, of Lewiston, and Everett Knowlton IV, then 6, and his sister Keona Knowlton, then 8, both of Poland, it was the first time participating in the festival. Together, they reeled in five trout.

Just after noon and with help from dad Steve Cornish of Lewiston, Josh caught the festival’s largest fish at that point. It was a brookie just over 11 inches long.

“I caught the biggest fish!” Josh said excitedly to nearby young anglers while waiting for another bite.

Keona caught three small trout shortly after the family arrived at about 9:30 a.m., while her brother caught the largest trout until Josh Cornish got his “lunker.”

The day of the festival last year was family day for the Knowlton children, their mom Ginger Knowlton and dad Everett Knowlton IV.

Steve Cornish, a professional magician and disc jockey in Lewiston, said he took the time off and came up to Bethel with his friends the Knowltons.

“I don’t have a lot of time off in my work, but I made it a point that (Josh) was coming to this,” Steve Cornish said.

After seeing an article about the festival in the Sun Journal, Ginger Knowlton said she and her husband, an avid angler, decided to give the annual festival a try.

Ginger Knowlton said their children were anxious to get to Bethel and catch fish to give to their grandfather, her dad, who is also an avid angler.

“They were up at 6 this morning, all excited, asking, ‘Can we go? Can we go?’ And I said, ‘Not yet guys,'” Ginger Knowlton said last year.

They live about a mile from Range Pond, so the drive to Bethel took about 70 minutes.

Prior to the fishing festival, their last family outing was to downtown Norway to participate in the Easter Bunny festival, she said.

“We got here about 9:30, but (Keona) got her (fish) really fast, within the first half-hour we were here, and then (Everett IV) got his and now we’re trying to help Josh get his,” Ginger Knowlton said about 25 minutes before Josh caught his fish.

They weren’t expecting their children to catch any fish. Neither was Cornish.

“We have to leave here and go get a cooler afterwards,” Ginger Knowlton said, watching her husband and Steve Cornish cast lines for the children.

“We didn’t really actually think they’d catch anything and they did, so we’re like, ‘Oh my!'” she said.

“I couldn’t believe Keona got three though. I was like, ‘Wow!’ So my dad will be pleased. My dad’s 80, with Parkinson’s, so that will really make him happy.”

Asked how she caught three trout, Keona said, “I kept my eye on the bobber.”

“It’s nice that they did this,” Ginger Knowlton said of the town for constructing the swimming/fishing pond. “It’s beautiful out here, just like my husband said.”

The Upper Andro Anglers Alliance, in cooperation with Trout Unlimited, hosted the event last year. Local Maine guides and members of the Mollyockett Chapter of Trout Unlimited taught free casting workshops and fly-tying.

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife supplied the children and their families with complimentary rods and reels for use at the festival.

Additionally, the alliance gave each young angler a mini-tackle box complete with bobber, sinkers and hook.

Festival volunteer Fran Head said the event went very well.

“It’s very successful, considering the heat, and that’s been a deterrent,” she said.

THIS YEAR’S EVENT WILL BE HELD ON

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