Fishing with a six year old

Trip 1: Night at the pond

Leo with his nice bass

Last weekend we had some family in town- the Smerglia's were visiting. You may remember Leo from such fishing adventures as the big catfish caught on topwater last October, or the big smallie caught earlier that day, or the white perch caught in Lake Erie... We've done a lot of fishing together! We had a handful of short trips the past weekend. It's been a few days, so my memory's a little foggy, but I figured I should document our adventures.. You know, for posterity.

Thursday Leo and I made the "hike" (a short walk on sidewalk) to the neighborhood pond for some night fishing. It was relatively cold, but not to cold to fish. After the short walk, we stood on the bank of the pond and started casting out our lures in the dark.
Leo was the first to connect with a fish- throwing a skinny crank, he beat the skunk for our fishing duo with a nice bass.

Naturally I switched to the closest thing I had to his lure, which turned out to be a $2 medium-diving crank from Meijer. Pretty soon I also landed a nice fish!

Should have used the flash...

All we caught after that were weeds.

Trip 2: Daytime at the pond

Charlie and a monster

Fishing with a six-year-old can be difficult at times... Charlie has an uncanny knack for knotting his fishing line in the most unusual and difficult-to-untangle ways! As frustrating as it can be to fix his line after every cast (let's be honest, Leo did most of that...) the shrieks of joy when he landed a fish make it all worth it!

Leo and I didn't do to bad either, each ending up with some fish. Well, I ended up with just one... but it was pretty nice. Hey a fish is a fish, I'd rather catch a fish than no fish! We visited Busse earlier in the day with nothing to show for it, so it was nice to feel like fishermen again.

Trip 3: The next day at the pond

Leo, Charlie and I headed back to the pond for another short trip- and hey, we managed to catch some fish! Charlie caught a ton of fish, some of them completely by himself. Some of them he needed a little "assistance" shall we say... A common phrase heard on the water was "Charlie, watch your bobber- it's moving!"

One of them was especially chunky and had some spiky chompers to boot.

Fat and toothy!

Trying something new, I put a nightcrawler on a circle hook, added a pair of heavy weights, and cast it out to the middle of the pond with my ultralight. I immediately realized how hard it is to cast with a short rod! It took a few tries to launch by bait out there, but eventually I got it out far enough. I loosened the drag, set down my rod, and headed back to the other side of the pond where Leo and Charlie were slaying'em.

Nice work (one of MANY fish)

And then, watching Charlie fish, Leo said "hey did you see that fish jump? isn't that over by your rod?" I looked over, just missing the sight of a bass jumping clear out of the water. That's when I started running! I'd positioned my rod far away from us so we wouldn't hook into it, but now there was a fish on and it seemed very far away.

And then... I reeled it in, and there was a bass on the hook!

Charlie helped me hold the giant bass I caught

Trip 4: Sunday morning

Leo and I headed out early, 6-year-old-less, on a mission to catch some more fish. The problem was it stormed the night before, and we didn't know how the fish would react. I was going to take us to Songbird Slough, but at the last minute we headed to Wooddale Grove. Pretty sure they stocked it last weekend with rainbow trout, maybe there were still some left.

Turns out, for whatever reason, the fish were completely uncooperative. The weeds were insane. The wind was torrential. We found a school of little bluegill, you know, those fish who ALWAYS bite. We could see down in the water, and put nightcrawlers right in front of their faces- and they just looked at it. They clearly saw it, and a few took tiny nibbles, but getting any bites was like pulling teeth. Somehow managed to hook two monsters (6" or less). We cut our losses and headed to the pond.

Almost immediately Leo had a fish interested! He was throwing a firetiger spoon, and almost landed a bass- maybe it fell short of the lure. We couldn't get it to react again. We worked our way around the pond, trying to avoid the massive quantities of weeds, but it was no use. After a while nature was calling and we headed home.

A great bunch of trips, some real nice fish, and good times. Next time we'll have to catch one of those monster pond cats...