The next generation fisherman

This afternoon, I asked my kids if they wanted to go fishing. The youngest two said "Yes!". Last weekend I took them briefly to the YMCA lake without any luck but this time we were going to a neighborhood park and we were going to give meal worms under a float a try.

Before we left, I had stopped by the local pet shop for a cup of meal worms but all they had were the "super" worms. They were a bit big but since that is all they had and sunset was going to be approaching soon, I got them anyways.

I rigged up a small spinning rod for my son and the pink Barbie pole for my daughter and we headed to the park.

The day had turned out to be a pleasant day with temperatures in the 60s. We walked around the pond looking for fish. I decided to every once in a while throw a meal worm in the water and see what happened. In one spot, soon after the meal worm would hit the water, you would see a swirl appear and the meal worm would get sucked into the vortex. I told my son to cast into the vortex and we waited.

Not long afterwards, the float went below the water surface and start taking off. It was a nice sunfish! I had my son bring in the fish and we snapped a photo of this nice 8 1/2" to 9" Green Sunfish and then released it.

My daughter, however, seemed to be more interested in exploring the park and had abandoned her Barbie pole. My son was intent on catching more fish though the "super" meal worms were fascinating him.

We moved to a different spot and found fish but given the size of the worms, the smaller sunfish would grab the tail but not the hook and so we had a lot of false strikes.

As the sun started setting and we were out of worms, I told the kids we were heading home. My son was disappointed as he wanted to continue fishing. While in the truck he asked me about building his own spinning rod which is something we discussed last weekend. He was still interested in doing that. I am still looking for an inexpensive kit for an ultralight spinning rod.

Just before bedtime tonight, my son asked me if we could go fishing tomorrow. I told him that tomorrow is a school day and he answered, "What about after school?". I responded, "We'll see".

I am getting the impression that my son is now coming into his own passion as I did about fishing. So it looks like this year I will be devoting much more time to fueling this passion by taking him with me more often. It also seems like I have some work to do with my daughter. ;-)