Ralph White looked at the bag stocked with 4-inch-long largemouth bass.

"Reach in there," he told Tracey Rinaldi, "and grab a predatory fish."

Rinaldi, 45, of Henrico County was one of several festivalgoers to take part in a fish release during yesterday's Earth Day Celebration and James River Fish Festival on the south side of the Mayo Bridge in Richmond.

Hundreds of people turned out on a warm, sunny day.

White, manager of the James River Park System, directed several adults and plenty of eager children as they scooped handfuls of fathead minnows, bluegill sunfish and largemouth bass and then tossed them splashing into the Manchester Canal.

White said the festival celebrates the relative cleanliness of the James River and the opportunities it offers for outdoor activities.

A busload of children from the Baltimore area came and enjoyed the festival. Quraan Randolph, 7, got a lesson in casting, then took to the river with his Transformers fishing rod, a gift from his mother. He wasn't having much luck.

Holly Houtz, a graduate biology student at Virginia Commonwealth University, was letting children release 1-day-old fish larvae into the river. She said the fish will swim to the Atlantic Ocean and then return to release their eggs.

There were plenty of vendors and booths along Decatur Street. Folk-music performer Pamela McCarthy, who writes songs about forlorn love, strummed a guitar and sang on stage.

A shirtless man with a hubcap hat and yellow paint on his hands demonstrated how pieces of trash can become objects of art, showing off a windmill fashioned from empty water bottles.

Elsewhere, one activist collected signatures for a petition opposing a coal-fired plant in western Virginia.

Colleen Foster, an Earth Day volunteer, stood beside long tree branches that had been erected to look like little trees. A paper ornament torn from a bag of cat food contained an environmentally friendly suggestion: "Carpool People!"

Foster said the point of her exhibit was to take items that normally wouldn't be recycled and put them to use.

"Art is the next best thing," Foster said, "to keep these things from going into the landfill, and give it a purpose."
Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com.