I got my daughter her first fishing pole a few weeks ago when she saw me fishing for bass on the boat and said she wanted to fish. A cute little pink barbie pole with a rubber butterfly she can cast out and not get snagged on anything. I knew if I wanted to get her hooked on fishing I’d need to find some kid friendly fishing spot where small panfish bite consistently.
Last week we were bike riding on the Walton Woods path and stopped at Lake Audubon and I noticed the sunfish swimming around right near shore. So Sunday when we rode over there I brought her pole, a bobber, a single hook and 3 worms I found in the back yard.
Not 30 seconds after casting out the bobber starts bouncing around and I’m telling her to reel it in. The grin on the kids face when she pulled in that little sunfish was priceless.
My grandfather was the one who really taught me how to fish, and he passed away about a year ago. The last time I was home my grandmother gave me his old fishing stuff, which is where I found the bobber and single hooks since all the stuff I have for fishing is bass/pike stuff. It was nice thinking that in some small way he helped her catch her first fish too.
Fishing is a hobby that’s always fun to do with family, and I’ll bet even more enjoyable with your own kids. I look forward to those moments with my kids.
If that is the same pond I am thinking of, there are/used to be some monster bass in there as well. Haven’t been in about 2 years though, they started cutting down shore-side shrubs and destroyed some good spots
Yeah, I posted this just to show people you don’t need a boat, $1000’s of dollars of fishing gear or need to go target 30lb salmon to take a kid fishing.
$15 barbie combo pole/reel.
About $2 for a bobber and some single hooks.
3 worms I found under the giant rubbermaid thing I keep next to the pool shed to store firewood for campfires. Tossed them in a Wylers ice tea container with a little dirt.
Find a small pond where you can see panfish (perch, sunfish, rockbass etc) near shore and fish. The bobber wasn’t in the water for more than a minute each time before we had fish hitting it. The key for fishing with kids is not the quality of the catch but the quantity. A kid has way more fun catching 20 little throw back fish in 30 minutes than one 5lb bass in an hour.
Sorry, my writeup is geared toward the average IQ of NYSpeed so I didn’t want someone posting up “I put the worms in my pocket and they died” or something.
