This is not T-ball for anglers. Yes, the Kids Can Catch Trout Pond in Pearce Estate Park is stocked and, yes, that name almost guarantees success, but the fish aren’t exactly jumping onto the shore.

“It’s easier at the start of the season,” says Tamara Unruh, public outreach programmer at the Bow Habitat Station (BHS), which oversees the pond. “The fish are smarter than you think, and they learn what a hook looks like.”

This year, the fishing season was interrupted by the June flood, which saw the pond—indeed, the whole park—swamped with muddy water. And when the Bow burst its banks, the fate of the 100 rainbow trout that called the pond home was not the top priority.

The BHS houses a fish hatchery and several aquariums, all of which are fed by 11 wells in the park. When these wells flooded the pumps quit working, which meant the fish in the station were swimming in stagnant water (two emergency generators did not kick in) that was slowly getting warmer and stressing the fish.

Unruh says “heroic” crews figured out a way to circulate some of the water seeping into the building to cool the aquariums and hatchery tanks. Once the pressing problems were solved, Alberta Fish and Wildlife turned its attention to the trout pond. One wild fish was found and 50 stocked trout had gone AWOL. The wild trout was returned to the Bow River and another 62 rainbow trout were added to the pond, bringing the total to 112. (The aquariums at the BHS remain closed to the public.)

The people casting their lines in search of those fish are a mixed bunch. The majority are kids in the company of parents and grandparents, but it’s not uncommon to see adults with fly rods (and fishing licences; anyone aged 16 to 64 needs one) trying their luck—or rather, trying to restore confidence shaken by a lack of success in the wild. “Sometimes people just need a good pat on the back,” Unruh says.

Maybe those adults will get the ego boost of landing a big one. And maybe some of the kids will fall in love with the sport. That would be a fitting occurrence because the pond, like a summer romance, is a going concern only from mid-May until the end of October. (And, like those brief encounters, the pond is strictly a catch-and-release proposition.)

Those who do fall for the sport will have to hope that the memory of fishing on a lazy summer day sustains them through the long winter. The fish, on the other hand, face a more daunting future. At the end of the season they are given to post-secondary schools for use in biology or culinary arts classes. “They either get dissected or filleted,” Unruh says.