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Information on Fishing with the Kids. How to teach boys and girls about fishing.
Fishing with the Kids Take Your Son or Daughter Fishing! Boys and girls will fish. What they get out of angling will depend a lot on their first few trips on a river. If angling is to be a rich experience in their lives, then conservation, good sportsmanship, and an appre ciation of the outdoors must be implanted early. Teaching Kids About Fishing Start this teaching by taking a boy (or girl) fishing. You may say, "There is no place for a boy on those hurried trips which I manage to finagle from the grim business of keeping a family solvent." But there are other ways of helping a boy with his fishing, even a whole community of boys. Ever thought of starting a casting club for them, a fly-tying class in the local high school? Do any of these things and eventually you will take a boy fishing and enjoy it. Kids Fishing Equipment Another thing what about those reels, rods, and lines which you no longer use, even though they still have plenty of service left in them? Of course, it is always better to outfit a beginner from scratch, with new, carefully selected equipment. But that isn't always possible, and I am betting that you, like myself, have yards of line which will never see the water again plus hooks, fly rods, casting rods, flies, and lures. Fishing items accumulate unless you have a boy or girl in mind to whom you can pass along your surplus. Here is the way I keep my tackle from getting out of hand. Each time I go fishing, I place a few extra items in a special pocket of my fishing jacket: a fly line which still has service in it, even though the finish isn't what it used to be; flies of which I have several duplicates; and extra hooks, spinners, wobblers, a couple of good tapered leaders, and a few tippets. There is a sampling of practically all items which I have found useful. But and this should always be remembered no item which has proved to be a failure finds its way into this pocket, to be palmed off on some boy or girl in need of good fish-taking equipment. During a day's fishing on practically any water, or for any kind of fish, I have something suitable and always I find a boy or girl in need of just the item I have. Not only that, but they sop up advice like a sponge! This entire angling setup is strange to them. They want to catch fish, and wanting can be extremely important to them much more so than it is to an experienced angler who has found a deep love of streams tempering his desire to take a creel of fish. By the time I meet a youngster on a stream I usually have a fair idea of what lure or fly pattern is going to produce, as well as the best method of presentation. We talk it over, the boy or girl that I meet, and discuss the possibilities of the water. It would never do to talk down to these beginning anglers; the talk must be from fisherman to fisherman. That in itself is a morale builder for these beginners. They unburden themselves to anyone taking an interest in their fishing. When I examine their tackle, I often find it is not right for either the fish or the water. Beginners usually use too-heavy leaders, too heavy lines and rods. Their tackle is predicated on catching a real old story-book heavyweight fish, and they go prepared to handle him. But that eventuality seldom occurs until they have learned to use much lighter tackle, properly tapered leaders, and more delicate flies. How to Help Kids with Fishing An experienced angler can make a valuable contribution to the success of a boy's first fishing effort. Set him up with a properly tapered leader and a selection of wet flies which have proved to be producers. You don't need many flies for this; a half dozen in about three patterns is much better than too many for a beginner. A Royal Coachman Bucktail is always good. So is a Grey Hackle Yellow and a Light Cahill. A large number of fly rods will handle a D level line, an HDH double taper, or a HCF torpedo head. By the same token, most anglers have lines of this nature, and it cannot be put to better use than in outfitting a boy for his first fly fishing. Always remember that youngsters are eager to learn. Some of the many fine points of fishing which you take for granted will come as revelations to them. Show them the spots where you expect to take fish and tell them the reason fish take up such positions. And that, of course, is going to take you into a discussion of avail able fish feed. Point out the stream life on the bottom of quiet pools and on the riffles. Retrieve a few nymphs and talk over the life cycle of these aquatics with them. But always leave a bit unsaid, too. I remember one such incident on Oregon's fabulous Rogue River, when I came onto a lad trying to use his first fly rod. He was having heavy going of it. His backcast was going low, tipping rocks on the bar behind him. He was putting too much power in his forward cast, and was continuing this power too long. So his line was sizzling out in a tight loop with the leader often fouling on it. It wouldn't have done to tell him all that was wrong with his casting. So I remarked about the tricky crosswind playing hob with one's cast ing. Then we talked fishing. He and I decided that, due to the vicious crosswind, we just simply had to confine our casting to twenty feet or so. Might be a good policy, too, if we kept our backcast plenty high. We also decided that to reach those out-of-the-way spots we would have to do some mighty careful wading. The upshot of all this was that, after the lad had taken one of my nine-foot tapered leaders and a Dark Cahill fly, he latched onto a twelve-inch rainbow. No tackle buster that, but you should have seen his face light up. At noon he shared my lunch, and we talked trout. We prowled around the riffles, examining trout food. We talked about hatches. I pretended I didn't know some of the may fly nymphs he brought to me for identification, and suggested that he preserve them by drying. Then, when vacation was over, he could get a book on aquatic insects and make his own identification. So tie carefully put them into a hook container for future study and classification. His dad, he told me, had hired a boat and guide to go up river for a day's fishing, leaving him to fish the water close to the fishing lodge where they were staying. After a few not-too-kind thoughts ahout this deal of leaving him at the lodge where he wouldn't be in the way, I invited him to go fishing with me for the evening. We fished a tributary of the Rogue, with a good hatch of may flies over the water. At dusk, when we quit the river, he had eight nice trout, one of which would go a full sixteen inches. I took only three trout during the evening. My time was enjoy ably spent at the lad's elbow, talking about the way of a trout with a dry fly. At dark I drove him back to the fishing lodge, a tired but happy angler. He had topped his dad, both in the number of trout taken and in size. I took a lot of satisfaction in that. I don't remember a day's angling richer in rewards for me than this day I spent with a lad whose dad thought he would be in the way on a fishing trip! A boy or girl is never in the way on a fishing trip. What gets in the way on occasion is the selfishness of adult anglers who haven't time to pass along a bit of fishing equipment, and to lend a helping hand when it is needed. After this lad finished his vacation, I received a long letter from him, giving me the lowdown on those may fly nymphs about which I had pretended uncertainty. Enclosed in the letter were two sprawl ing nymph fly patterns, and two passable Brown Bi-Visibles. His casting was improving from his sessions on his front lawn with his fly rod. Next year he was going to take one of those big summer-run steelhead. From here on out he can make his own way. But at the time I found him trying to fish on the Rogue he needed counsel and equip ment, somebody to make his problems his own for a few hours. That should have been his father, of course. I am betting that in the years to come when this lad meets an other beginner on a stream, he will remember and will share his equipment and know-how with some other boy or girl.
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