Kid Fish
9/22/2006 4:10:11 PM by Scott S. Snay
Before you try to spend some quality time out on the water with your kids, make sure you read this article so you can ensure that a potentially disastrous event will end up one of the happiest experiences of your life.
In today's world, too many things jockey for our time spent with our children; from football and ballet classes to Muppets On Ice. Amid all the back-and-forth and never ending schedules, why not try taking your kids fishing? Now, don't get me wrong, I've spent a few too many days on the water with buddies who have, let's say, an unrealistic expectation from their kids when it comes to fishing. But if you can break a kid in the right way, you'll have a great fishing partner for the rest of your life.
"Match the Hatch"
I'm borrowing that saying from the fine gentlemen who fish trout with fly tackle. As with the need to match your fly with whatever insect trout tend to be eating at the time, so too is the need to match a young angler with fish they can manage. And let's face it: Young children are good at a great many things, but being patient isn't on the list of virtues of many five- or six-year-olds. A day spent live-baiting for sailfish or trolling for dolphin is a very pleasant day for Mom and Dad, but that time in between bites is an eternity for a kid.
I've noticed on several occasions that kids have a great time catching live bait on sabiki rigs, and the surest way to turn a smile into a frown is to tell a kid that it's time to stop catching bait, and go after some really big fish. Look into alternatives to that day of wreck fishing. If you think you might have trouble pulling a 30-pound grouper off a wreck with 30-pound stand-up gear, think of what a 10-year-old must go through.
Action!
Kids love constant action. It doesn't really seem to matter what's pulling, as long as something is pulling. Patch reefs make an ideal stop for young anglers. With a couple boxes of chum, some shrimp or squid, and an incoming tide, you can make a kid's day with all the snappers, grunts, jacks, porkfish and all the other species that inhabit shallow reefs. You can get a good three or four hours of action off of a nice patch, and get action just about every time the bait hits the bottom. And after three or four hours, young anglers are ready to pack it in and head for concrete.
Patch reefs aren't the only place to go. Finger channels, grass flats that hold trout, or even the trusty local fishing pier are all great places to hone angling skills. When you weigh in the long-term benefits of short, sensible days, you realize that trips like that are priceless. Matching a small angler to small fish helps to build confidence in a kid. Not much is more demoralizing to a budding Zane Grey than to loose one fish after another because the fish easily overpowered them. Very few kids have the angling techniques down to the point where they can handle a charging sailfish on 20-pound tackle with 5 pounds of drag. Honestly, I've seen quite enough adults have trouble in that scenario, so stick to the small stuff.
If you figure that the average eight- or nine-year-old is somewhere around four feet tall, it is awfully difficult to manage the standard seven-foot spinning rod. There has been a proliferation in the last several years with respect to short rods for specialty work, and many of those short spinners would fit the bill for a young angler. A spinner in the 8- to 10-pound class in a five- to six-foot length would be ideal for kids. Learning the basic techniques of casting, retrieving and fighting fish is much easier if the tackle is sized up for the angler. Rod manufacturers such as Shimano, St. Croix and Falcon all make specialty rods for worm jigging, and these "shorties' are just what the doctor ordered. If you're feeling especially generous, custom builders like Biscayne Rod in Hialeah build some beautiful custom rods for kids, as does Miami-based Leeward Rods.
So, what are you waiting for? Fall has arrived, and there are still some beautiful days to be spent with your kids on the water. Remember, kids aren't big enough (yet) to battle a really big tarpon, but the smile you'll get when they catch any little thing that pulls is absolutely priceless.