Posts Tagged ‘fly fishing with kids’

I received a very nice email and photograph from Trevor Northan, Business Development Manager of Total Sea Fishing Magazine.  Trevor writes,

“I just came across your article (ed. Snowbee Classic Junior Fly Rod) purely by accident, and I gave the same Snowbee rod to my Granddaughter who started fly fishing at 7 years of age. Having been a keen fly angler myself for many years I was amazed at how quickly Poppy took to the sport, and not only managed some effective short range casts, but landed 3 fine rainbows on her first outing. I have attached a picture for your perusal.

As you say this rod is light and very easily put to great use by a young beginner to the sport, and casts beautifully. Like you I agree that it is best suited to a 6wt line. Whenever a product is aimed at the “ child market “ there is always a huge shortfall in it’s usefulness: not so with this gem of a rod. To an adult, as you say, you are restricted by its’ length: but a child is not. This is the finest rod that you could ever give a young fly fisher and 100% fit for the purpose!”

The image Trevor sent:

Trevor’s granddaughter Poppy caught the fish in the photo with the Snowbee Junior fly rod at Heathcote Lakes near Warwickshire, UK.  Warwickshire is located in the West Midlands region of England.  Trevor writes that the area has some hard fighting fish that take savagely and provide good sport.

I’m looking forward to posting some photos of my son David with some fish caught on his Snowbee Junior rod – crossing fingers he’ll be into some later this spring.

Thanks for the note and photo, Trevor! And congratulations, Poppy! I hope you continue to enjoy fly fishing with that rod your grandfather gave you.

So my “wee man” is off to Edmonton for a couple of weeks, and I’m going to miss him. A Lot. Today, we decided to spend some time together and one of the things we’re doing is tying up some Beadhead Bloodworms.  David decided he wanted to look at a fly tying book, and we got out “Stillwater Solutions Recipes” by Phil Rowley and Brian Chan.

I doubt the public education teachers would be using this as a text or “early reader” book – but – it works.

“Dad, what’s this word?”

“Well, I know you could sound it out.”

“Wa… wa-ter…  b-.  Water bo…  How does the rest of it go, Dad?”

“Well, what do we say when we see two vowels together?”

“When two vowels go a-walking, the first one does the talking!”

“You got it, David!  So try again.”

“Wa-water bo-boat – boatman.  Water Boatman, Dad!  This fly is called a Water Boatman!  That’s a funny name for a fly.”

So we look at the Water Boatman patterns. Turn some pages and come to “Leeches.”  David has no problem sounding that one out.  Scuds of course was easy too.

Ah, good job at at least trying to sound out “chironomids,” David!  That was a tough one.

So there you go.  Home schooled kids can learn about entymology while learning how to read at the same time.

Not bad for a kid that just turned five a couple of months ago.

So it was a nice day and David had been asking, “Daddy, when are we going to go out in a boat?”

I still had some work to do, but figured “what he heck – let’s go fishing!”

So of we went to the club and discovered only about two other people around. Got the rods set up (just in case David wanted to hold one) and paddled out.

It was funny to see David a bit startled at first when he first stepped into the boat – he wasn’t expecting the boat to move a little. But he bravely carried on, set up his “lunch bag” with our treats beside him, and sat down.

It’s been a while since I’ve been in a rowboat myself – so after discovering once again my right shoulder is stronger than my left shoulder, compensating, we made a straight line for the middle of the small lake and then to the east end as the breeze that was blowing seemed to be coming from the east – made for some nice drifting back.

David just loved it! You can tell by his smile (the pics are clickable – you can see larger images if you click on them – use your back button on your browser to return):

I had brought along my 7′9 Sage 2 wt for David to hold if he wanted – but he was more interested at the time in enjoying the sailing. I had my own rod – and used it – but didn’t really do much serious fishing as this was the first time I’ve fly fished from a such a small watercraft with someone else in the boat – and I was more interested in sharing David’s happiness about simply being out in a boat. He had been looking forward to it ever since his life preserver had been purchased.

Eventually, we did come back to shore, and I spent a few minutes fly fishing from the dock. By that time, the temperature had dropped quite quickly – although there were some hatches on – and the odd fish hitting the surface – nothing much was going on.

In fact, others who had been there all day had told me that the fishing had been very tough.

I tied on a Wooly Bugger, had a few casts – but nothing. Then, an interesting thing occurred: I was very slowly stripping line, when I thought I should just let the wooly bugger sink deeper, and watch it’s action as it sank – when a fish hit it. I didn’t have more than 10′ of line out in the water plus the leader.

It was a nice rainbow! David was very excited to discover a fish was on the end of the line – as was I, of course. While playing the fish, I fumbled around for my camera – this fish simply did not want to be brought to hand at all and put up a great fight.

Finally got the fish close enough to the dock that I could kneel down and pull it up, removed the hook, and managed a quick picture before releasing it:

I had second thoughts about keeping it for breakfast – but decided that I’ll do that another time.

David ended up having a great time even though he didn’t catch anything. He didn’t seem to care much, and enjoyed the holistic experience. I did manage to get him trying out some fly casting – but we’ll leave that for another blog post.

And perhaps tomorrow, David and I will make it out again!