Fish Sniffer On Demand Digital Edition Issue 3616 July 21- August 4 2017 | Page 16
16
July 21 - August 4, 2017
MAP FEATURE
VOL.36 • ISS. 16
The Fishing in the City program stocked 2,000 pounds of channel catfish like this one in the Howe Community Park.
Photo by DAN BACHER, Fish Sniffer Staff.
Joe Ferreira Retires After 24 Years With Fishing In The City
T
he California Department of
Fish and Wildlife’s “Fishing in
the City” program, now in its twen-
ty-fourth year in the Sacramento area,
is the best and most needed project
that the Department has ever initiated,
in my opinion.
Created to improve angling
opportunities for the growing urban
population in the nation’s most popu-
lous and most diverse state, much of
the success of the program is due to
the hard work, persistence and good
nature of Joe Ferreira, the coordinator
of the Program in Sacramento since
it started up at Southside Park in the
summer of 1993.
I was present at the Joe’s first
fishing clinic at Southside - and I
couldn’t miss his final day as coor-
dinator. You see, after 39 years with
the CDFW, Joe officially retired on
Thursday, July 6.
The Department, through a private
contractor, planted 2,000 pounds of
channel catfish in the Howe Park
Pond in Sacramento. It was the most
heavily attended Fishing in the City
event I have personally been to for a
number of reasons.
First, it was on Free Fishing Day.
Second, it was heavily
publicized. And third,
many volunteers
and fishermen who
have been with the
program wanted
to make sure they
thanked Joe for
his many
years
with CDFW.
The program that Joe has coordi-
nated has been offering fishing clinics,
free rod and reel rentals and stocking
rainbow trout and channel catfish
ponds in close to home ponds in the
Sacramento and Stockton metropol-
itan areas. The program also serves
the San Francisco and Los Angeles
metropolitan areas.
When introduced to Sacramen-
to and Southern California in 1993,
novices and veteran anglers welcomed
it alike. Up until that time, young
anglers generally were introduced to
fishing by the parents and guardians,
grandparents, other relatives and
friends. If you didn’t have parents or
friends that were experienced anglers,
you were often out of luck.
Even though Joe is leaving, the
program is in good hands. Don Pagan-
elli, a fishing guide who has been with
Fishing in the City for many years,
will be temporary coordinator of the
program until the Department hires a
permanent coordinator.
“It has been a really good expe-
rience working with the program,”
said Joe. “It’s been a fun ride. Some
people who fish the ponds also fish
the Delta and other locations. But
there are some people who just fish
their neighborhood ponds – and this
program offers them a chance to catch
fish close to home.”
After retiring, Joe will be making
one final appearance at the Granite
Regional Park Pond fishing clinic on
August 12. “But I will be there as a
civilian,” he joked.
The fishing event will be a
memorial to Tom Burruss, who
passed away this year, and ran
the event for years in conjunc-
Joe Ferreira, the affable and
beloved coordinator of the
CDFW’s Fishing in the City
program in Sacramento since
1993, retired on July 6.
Photo by DAN BACHER, Fish Sniffer Staff.
Daniel Vang holds up a channel catfish just caught out of the Howe Community Park Pond on
the July 1, Free Fishing Day.
Photo by DAN BACHER, Fish Sniffer Staff.
tion with the Police Athletic League
(PAL). A total of 2,000 pounds of
channel catfish will be planted for the
event.
The following clinic after that
will be at the Florin Creek Park Pond
on Saturday, August 26, 2017, from
7:45am - 11:00 am. For more infor-
mation, call 916) 395-0601.
“Normally, we don’t like to do
kids only events because I’ve found
that in teaching kids how to fish,
they do it best in family groups,”
Ferreira said. “However, this pond is
very small and has limited space for
anglers.”
He explained that during the fish-
ing and conservation clinics that he
has done for so many years, the adults
will listen and then help the kids fish,
based on the advice that Joe and oth-
ers have given.
Robert Silva, the parent involve-
ment coordinator for SETA Head Start
Fatherhood Programs, commented
during Joe’s last event as coordinator,
“It’s a great to see the amazement of a
kid catching their first fish. I’ve been
doing this for 15 years and Fishing in
the City has been one of the mainstays
of our program. Joes’s been wonderful
to us over the years.’
Joe started as a seasonal aide with
the CDFW at in 1978 at Crystal Lake
Fishery Hatchery, and then worked
with the Central Valley Fish Hatchery
and Darrah Springs Hatchery.
He also did stints at Elkhorn
Slough and the State Endangered Spe-
cies Program. While coordinating the
Fishing in the City Program, Joe has
done outreach for the pike eradication
program at Davis Lake from 1997 to
2008 and other projects.
The program has seen its chal-
lenges over the years. “The budget
has stayed the same, but the costs of
purchasing fish have gone up. We’ve
been forced to do fewer deliveries of
trout during the winter and catfish in
the summer,” said Ferreira.
In spite of Department cutbacks
and increasing costs of planting fish,
the program has endured. Whereas the
program used to stock a number of
ponds in the Sacramento area with fish