"Sarver's Bait & Tackle" sounds like something you'd find along the Yough rather than in Downtown Pittsburgh.

But the indomitable Tom Sarver -- purveyor of the briefly famous Tom Museum, co-founder of the legendary Black Sheep Puppet Festival, instigator of Art Olympic Theatre -- has set up shop at 905 Penn Ave. as a part of the Three Rivers Arts Festival, which opens Friday.

Sarver, who was born in 1975 in New Castle and grew up in pre-colonized Cranberry, recalls riding bikes with his buddies out to local fishing holes tucked among nearby forests and farms.

His fascination with fishing began when he was 5 during a trip to the Ohio River to celebrate a cousin's birthday. His cousin caught no fish and, worse, had his new rod and reel dragged off by one. But Sarver unexpectedly pulled in a big carp on the dough ball bait his uncles had prepared.

"[My cousin] never fished again, but I was hooked for life," Sarver says. The pursuit of finned fauna is part of the appeal, but even more so "for me it's getting out and relaxing," Sarver says.

"I like to be outside. The element of exploration is always interesting to me."

In his documentary video, "The Fishing Report, Part I," Sarver talks to local fishermen about their techniques and likes. The 30-minute Part II -- which includes Eastern Pennsylvania anglers, a visit to a hatchery and stocking streams -- will play in the "bait shop," along with a new group of "little dream sequence movies about fishing as a metaphor for adventure or escape," featuring Sarver as a zany fisherman.

He says his favorite part of the second fishing report is when a fellow at the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania's Pine Creek Gorge says he's come out for opening day for the past eight or nine years even though he's never caught anything. "He says he comes to sit on the bank and close his eyes and relax; to get out, enjoy nature and talk with people," Sarver says.

Sarver's sculpture and painting, which straddle folk and hip, sets the stage for a number of activities during the festival, not the least of which is the opportunity to exchange fish tales with the artist who will be in residence when the "shop" is open.

"People who don't even fish have a fish story," Sarver says and then launches into a few of his own.

Like when he was fishing with artist Tim Kaulen on a Canadian lake and caught a 38-inch muskie, immortalized in wood in the bait shop.

Or the ocean fishing trip when each fish caught was larger than the last. When Sarver dragged up a big bluefish he decided to stop, "before I became the bait."

When fishing with his sisters one day in Allegheny National Forest they shared a stream with a bunch of dour-faced men in camouflage dress on the banks. Sarver, wearing a bright red shirt and cutoffs, splashed into the water and modeled a lure after a "weird bug" he saw. He caught a trout with his first cast, his second, missed with the third, and scored with the fourth. Some of the fishermen left, disgruntled.

Sarver's last cast snared a fish, but it dropped into the water and swam around his legs. "I reached down and grabbed it with my bare hands." At that improbable occurrence his sisters and the remaining fishermen broke into laughter.

And then there's the one that got away ...