Getting a kid hooked on fishing isn’t always easy.
Sometimes the fish just aren‘t biting, the weather’s inclement, the tackle’s too complicated. Sometimes the kid would rather be doing something else.
But every once in a while it works and you can see it in their eyes, and even if they wanted to, they can’t throw that hook.
My two oldest granddaughters came up for a visit the last week in July. It was their first trip away from home by themselves.
Barb and I weren’t sure what to expect. We planned to take them out in the boat, but didn’t know how they would take to trolling, which was how we had been catching fish lately.
Teagan, at 7, is already an experienced angler. Her dad has taken her fishing at the lagoon near their home in Livingston since she was tiny. Her little sister Hayden, 5, fishes too, but still prefers dolls and stuffed toys to spinning rods and crankbaits.
Following a short run down the lake, we slowed to trolling speed, dropped the lures in the water and I handed Teagan a rod.
Hayden crawled up on the foredeck and started playing with her dolls.
I half expected Teagan to join her after a half hour or so, but it wasn’t a minute later and she was into a fish.
“I’ve got one,” she announced calmly, then proceeded to start cranking on the reel, the rod bowed with the weight of the walleye.
I was tempted to help her reel, but instead just watched and soon she had the fish alongside the boat where I netted it and pulled it aboard.
“Wow,” said a breathless Teagan. “That’s the biggest fish I ever caught.”
We put the 2-pound walleye in the cooler turned the boat around and resumed trolling. She caught a few more before her sister said it was time to quit fishing and ride the tube.
We fished the next morning and Teagan got skunked. But it took nearly two hours of fishless trolling for her to lose interest.
She was hooked.
Teagan caught five walleye and a whitefish on the third morning, delighting in the struggle to land them.
Barb entertained the girls that afternoon while their exhausted grandfather took a nap. They each made badges from construction paper, Teagan’s declaring her the “Champion of Walleye.”
She wore it home the next day after vowing to come back and fish every summer, “Even when I’m in college,” she told us.
Whether or not her siblings will become fishermen or not is yet to be seen. I’m sure their father will give them the opportunity.
And I certainly hope they take the hook.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net