Tips on helping the kid land her first big fish

Another day, another personal best for her:

17", landed with the same technique. This morning was not quite as exciting and non-stop. The bass were elsewhere when we first got there but they started cruising through to get some breakfast after a bit. Fishing is weird, like the bass were late to work or something? But she got a good one. I think there's a bit of hedonic adaptation going on, of course - one big fish is amazing but your second one is "only one fish today!"

In related news, I did see some crappie hanging out but by the time we got back to that spot they were gone. I'd love for her to catch one but the bluegill are so aggressive I don't know if she can keep the bait in the water long enough. Maybe if we got some minnows to fish with?

Wow!  That's a nice fish!

Yeah, that's a fattie!  

I flyfish exclusively, but have found that in warm water lakes, bass are most active just before sunset, but morning is a good time as well.  

As she progresses, casting technique becomes the real key to large trophy sized fish.  You have to be better at getting lures and bait into tighter and more secluded pools to find the cunning fat fish... But she's off to a heckova start!  Parentally, you're doing specacularly too-  just be there to give her any opportunities she wants to take advantage of, and she'll fall in love with the sport in short order, if not already. 

Awesome!

golfduke said:

As she progresses, casting technique becomes the real key to large trophy sized fish.  You have to be better at getting lures and bait into tighter and more secluded pools to find the cunning fat fish... But she's off to a heckova start!  Parentally, you're doing specacularly too-  just be there to give her any opportunities she wants to take advantage of, and she'll fall in love with the sport in short order, if not already. 

My dad always talks about a quote, and I can't remember it exactly or to whom it should be attributed, but it is something to the effect of "To be a parent is to know true selflessness". 

Dad always says "I always thought I understood that, but I never actually understood it until the first time I tried to take 3 boys under the age of 10 fishing. I thought I was going to be fishing. I didn't fish for more than 25 seconds. I spent the entire time pulling snags, retying lines, untangling lines... The one time I actually did get a line in the water for more than 5 seconds, I got a bite, and without a second thought, handed it to [the son] who hadn't caught one yet"

But of course, things have a way of circling around to the beginning. Now his kids are 34, 32, and 29, and though we're using his boats, we take him fishing, get all the lines and everything set up the night before, have multiples of everything so that if we do get a tangle or break a line we don't have any downtime futzing with it, and are basically acting as a guide for him - not that he wouldn't and couldn't do all of that, just that because of his selflessness, we've become much better fishermen than he was, and we're quicker with everything. More lines in the water is always the goal. 

So keep it up David. This is really, really awesome, and I selfishly hope that my daughter shows the same enthusiasm yours does for the sport.

In reply to mtn :

That was awesome to read. I think part of the increase in her effectiveness is this year so far I haven't even bothered to put a line in the water. I'm just focused on helping her get what she needs to fish. I've had to check myself a couple times where I was proxy fishing - doing too much for her - but we're both learning at this point.

@golfduke: Thanks!

Oh, something I forgot to mention: she got her first taste of the famous largemouth bass jump this morning. When she had the 17"er hooked he gave her a nice big leap out of the water trying to shake the hook. I wasn't right there with her so didn't see it other than the splash but she was so impressed.

In reply to dculberson :

Ohhh man, get her a Pop-R if she really wants to have some fun with that! Nothing quite like catching a bass on a topwater bait.

Ooh yeah, I did buy a Hula Popper last year, I haven't even put it in the water yet I think.

Great work! The bluegill trick is almost like cheating.

As for time of day, I've caught some of my biggest fish around high noon. It really just depends on when the water temp is closer to the sweet spot. 

Note: Salt water fishing is completely different regarding time of day- while time matters for some species that sight feed, the most important thing is the tide. If you get down to the beach, I'll give you some tips.

 

In reply to Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) :

We're going to Key Largo in June! I could use those tips. I plan to charter one day on a small fishing boat (just us and the captain, not a big shared charter).

Key Largo is different; he captain will be your best bet for local knowledge. Most of what I know is from fishing in North Carolina, other areas may be different. There are a bunch of videos on YouTube about fishing the pedestrian bridge just past Islamorada, and it seems like it's a pretty hot spot. Absolutely bring a pier net if you go there.

If you're going to have a house on the water with a dock, there will be plenty of pinfish and the like around it to keep you busy. 

A great deal of freshwater knowledge transfers over into salt water.

High level:

The tides move bait around, and fish become active. Tides mean fish are biting. Slack water means fish are resting. A moving tide at high noon is better than still water just after dawn in many cases. Fish near and behind structure, almost like fishing a creek. Moving water or next to it is where the predator fish are likely to be. In slack areas, you're more likely to get stingrays.

Many fish are sight feeders. It's very unlikely to catch a king mackerel or barracuda if the sun isn't shining. At night and in very cloudy water, you're often shark and stingray fishing, even if you don't mean to be.

On piers, there are bands of areas that are better than others. Many people run out to the deep end and fish there. I've seen big fish moving in the channel closer to the beach, just past where the waves are breaking. Also, fish like sheepshead will move around the pilings and crunch barnacles and crabs along the length of the dock. Again, bring a pier net.

There's more, but I've got a meeting coming up and haven't eaten lunch yet.



 

Yesterday, my 7 year old wanted to go fishing at the lake near our house. I offered to take her out on the reservoir in the canoe in the evening but she chose the nearby option. She said "I want to do all the fishing myself so you can fish too." Which was unprompted and kind of amazing. Lately we've switched from tortilla breadballs to powerbait crappie nibbles for the bluegill / etc fishing. She was putting bait on the hook, catching the bluegills, unhooking them, putting them in the aerator bucket, etc. Meanwhile I was monitoring her line and messing around with my stuff. She didn't catch anything big, but I saw a nice bass trolling around so I started aiming for him.

He NAILED my bait and was a good fighter. Sadly I didn't start fighting quickly enough and he fully swallowed the hook, down to the shank. I tried for a bit to get it out but it was a big hook and there was almost no way he was going to survive that one. I ended up throwing him in our aerator bucket and taking him home and making some delicious beer battered bass filets instead. Wow, that was good. Since I already had the fryer going we added beer battered pickles and onion rings to the menu to go with our swiss chard greens.

That was definitely the biggest bass I've landed as an adult. I posted about the smallmouth I caught late last year but this guy was much bigger. 2.5 pounds, made about a pound of filet.

nice fish! 

In NH, we are full barbless hooks, lures or flies only (no bait) until June 15 when spawning season is over.  It's a nice challenge to hone skills that I'm quite enjoying at the moment. 

Circle hooks when using bait are game changing. You don't set the hook, you let the fish run with it and they hook themselves.

You may miss a few fish, but the fish you get will most likely be hooked in the corner of the mouth and can be released mostly unharmed to live another day.

In reply to Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) :

I thought I was using a circle hook, but it turns out I was wrong. I will get some and stick with those, I hated seeing the fish having swallowed that huge hook.

I love fresh caught bass. Everyone says it's gamey, but I've never had a bad experience eating it the same day. 

In reply to mtn :

It was delicious. The kids also loved it. 

I bought some circle hooks - a pack of 150 was only marginally more than a pack of 10 so being the hoarder I am I went for the 150. Well, today was quite a day. Long day working in the yard, delivering some soil to a friend for their garden, working on the boat, etc. But in there my 7 year old really wanted to go fishing. I'd been contemplating taking her for an evening trip for a while and she asked so I said I'd talk to mom about it. Five year old and mom stayed home and went to sleep, 7 year old and I went fishing. 
 

I'll set the scene: we walk up to the dock about 8 pm and maybe nine people are fishing but catching nothing despite hundreds of bluegill around. I bait her hook with a piece of worm (she'll do bread or power bait but worms are hard to get on the hook) and hand her the rod and within 15 seconds she has the first bluegill. People are shook. Within three minutes she has four in the bucket and I'm getting questions about bait. I rigged up her bigger pole with one of our new circle hooks and put the bluegill on and hand her the pole and within 2 minutes she's landed a 14" bass and the whole dock has just been schooled by a 7 year old girl in a dress. In a good way - people were laughing and asking questions and enjoying it. I hadn't even stood up from the bench yet I think. 
 

Even better: three weeks ago she hadn't caught a big bass yet. Today she spread the joy to a new family. One of the people asking about bait was a dad with his teen son. I could see they were having some frustrations and he asked what we were using and told the son they could come back with worms another day. I offered them worms and gave them one of ours and he managed to catch a bluegill. Slowly but at least one. Then I saw him rig up a J hook about five sizes too small and put the bluegill on it and it fell off after a couple casts. My kid offered some of hers and he kept losing the bait. Finally I offered a hook and tied it on for him and put a bluegill on the hook. He was fishing on a different part of the dock and I started pointing out bass to him. Well, the last one was a doozy and he kept pulling the bluegill out of its mouth until both of us were encouraging him to let the bass run for a bit. It worked and he landed a 20" bass and was so hyped about it. It felt really good to see and hear the joy he got from catching that fish and his dad was psyched as well. My 7 year old even got a huge kick from it. There was no way they were going to catch anything until we gave them a hand. It felt amazing.

She also caught her first crappie yesterday and her second crappie today. Both small (7.5" and 7" both below legal keeping size) but she was really pleased. 

Awesome!

In reply to dculberson :

Great story, and good on you for spreading the knowledge!

You are establishing some incredible memories of time with Dad with her. I haven't been fishing in years and reading this brought me right back to all of the fishing adventures I used to get up to with my father.

Thanks guys! Yesterday we went out on the boat and I posted us up near some submerged brush / tree tops and told her there were likely crappie in there. She cut a piece of worm and I put it on the hook (still a bit of delicate work for a 7 year old) and a minute later hauled up a nice 10" white crappie. "My first white crappie!" she repeated several times. She knew the species too; I didn't tell her what it was. Since it was of legal size for eating she wanted to keep it and I filleted it last night but we were home too late to cook it that day. It's in the fridge for deliciousness later.

We planned a fishing outing for this morning before work, and for the first time she was awake before I went to wake her up!

We had previously made a small minnow trap using utility wire and an old produce bag. It was similar to what I've seen around, but I figured it was more fun to make one than to buy it. Well, it works really well - we put it in the creek behind our house and caught like 15 nice creek chubs in the trap. We let those go, and I only had a little time yesterday to put the trap out but we got a few nice chubs in it, with us planning on targeting crappie with them.

The trap:

with tortilla as bait; it seems to work really well.

We walked to the local lake and I rigged up the minnow under a bobber. A few casts in, and she got a nice big bite. She reeled it in and kept saying "it's a crappie!" The guy next to us said "nice bass!" but she was insistent it was a crappie. Honestly I wasn't sure but I thought it looked a little too meaty to be a crappie and the mouth was too big. Plus it didn't have the compound curve to the face that crappie have. Other than that one fish - which fortunately we took a measured photo of - we didn't get much. We ran out of chubs fast because she put the bluegill she caught in the same bucket and they ate some! On the way home, I started talking about the "crappie" and wondering if maybe it was a bass. We finally did some photo searching and it turns out it's a rock bass. As soon as I said that she said - "then daddy it's a fish ohio fish!" Sure enough, the minimum size for rock bass is 9" to quality as an outstanding catch and this one is about 9.5":

So we submitted it this morning and she's now 1/2 the way to getting a master angler pin for this year. I have a feeling that we can get a 20" largemouth bass on bluegill and for the fourth species hopefully we can get her a 13"+ crappie using the creek chubs. They seem to make great bait. We just need to give the trap more time and keep the minnows in a separate bucket from the bluegill! I'm hoping to go out in the boat this weekend on a local lake that's known for crappie. We were fishing a different pond recently and had someone there regaling us with all the enormous crappie he caught there.

We also gathered a bunch of nice earthworms at home but the garden caught earthworms (vs the store-bought "canadian nightcrawlers") seem to fall apart more easily and so the bluegill steal them. They still work as bait, there's just a lot of lost worms with no fish hooked.

cool fish!  How'd it eat?

Rock bass are among my least favorite fish, but that one is a fattie!