How to Introduce Kids to Fishing

A Toddler and a Tight Line
“Fishing is our handshake, our language.
A Heritage that binds us together.
A passage our fathers took.
A Journey that lasts a lifetime,
That we have begun again with our sons and daughters.”
---Author Unknown

The Caney Fork farm had a trout pond that was a charmed place for me as a child. It was the genesis of my love for fishing. I landed my first trout in that pond before I was potty-trained. Papaw had a fly rod with a ‘magic’, automatic, spring-loaded reel. All you had to do was squeeze a trigger and hold on!

As I recollect, I rode on my dad’s shoulders as we climbed the hill to the pond. My Dad (Vance) made the cast and placed the rod in my tiny hands. He showed me how to squeeze the trigger and told me to get ready. I think the fish was tugging while Dad was talking. I squeezed and squealed as the fly-line whipped tight as a banjo string. My little heart pounded at the realization that some creature and I were locked in a tug-o-war. I clutched the rod until my tiny knuckles turned white.

The fish in the Caney Fork pond were lunkers. Papaw fed them religiously. I’m sure it was therapeutic after a hard day’s work to take an unhurried stroll up to the pond which was shaded by the western hills. Papaw would stand beside the cool water, toss in a can of trout feed and watching the water boil in a grateful frenzy. I’ve done this often myself and it has a curative and calming effect just to watch the fish.

It was one of these well-fed brutes I was fighting. Clad in battle apparel probably consisting of a diaper and t-shirt, I took a wide stance, chin tucked, walnut sized biceps fully flexed. Eventually, the automatic reel and I were victorious. A veritable whale of a rainbow trout lay up on its silver side, spent. It was decorated with little polka dots and a pastel stripe down the length of its body.

My dad gave it a mercy whack on the head and cleaned it for dinner. We ate that fish and my family bragged on my achievement. I was hooked! For the first time, three generations of Moore men had stood angling at the bank of that pond, the youngest of which was enrolled that day in the school of Reel Men.