Fishing Febuary 19, 2008

Here in New England at least in Massachusetts, our school systems take two weeks off during the winter months, one in February and the other in April. My son wanted to go out and try ice fishing once and this was the perfect opportunity at getting him acclimated to the ice and fishing through a hole. He does very well in the summer months but never showed much interest for going out in the winter until now.

We decided to spend some time close to home so if he didn’t care for the ice fishing experience then we could get home fairly quickly. We went to the lake that I frequent quite regularly and had a good feeling that this lake would give him action to keep his interest peaked. After getting everything unloaded you could see the excitement in his face and also his step and as was pumped to get out and try this thing we call ice fishing.

We get out to the first spot and drill a couple of holes and then the explaining of equipment and things that he can touch and not touch especially when it comes to the auger blades. After getting the Vexilar going and explaining to him what he was seeing he actually seemed to understand that the green he was seeing was his bait and the red that was around it was the fish he was trying to catch.

I rigged him up with T.H.E. Jig as well as my lines and we proceeded to fish. The first location wasn’t showing any action and I decided to drill more holes a little ways away. As I finished drilling the holes I turned around and looked at David and he was fighting a fish that he had caught all on his own. The smile that he had on his face when that fish came out of the hole was priceless and one that I will be remembering for quite sometime.

Since now he was hooked on ice fishing he caught a few more from that hole and when the action slowed down he wanted me to drill more holes over there and that is what we did. He started getting the hang of setting the hook and also how to jiggle T.H.E. Jig to entice the fish into biting. The action started slowing some and so did his interest so he did like any other boy and ventured around a little on the ice.

Then the highlight of his day was to have a snack out there on the ice and this was a big moment for him as he thought he was so cool sitting there eating and fishing. We moved a few more times searching for some fish and as the afternoon wore on, so did the cold front that was coming through. The temps were dropping and the wind was picking up speed but he was a trooper and didn’t want to leave at all.

We were out there over 4 hours and he still wasn’t ready to go but the bite was getting none existent and you could see that his interest was waning. So he decided that it was time to go home and play in the backyard for a while, but he is definitely looking to shaping up to being his father’s son. He is hooked on ice fishing and wants to go again this weekend and I may now have a new buddy to take along with me fishing.

One thing that I have learned over the years is that you cannot push these kids into doing the things that we enjoy doing thinking they will as well. I want them to come to me and tell me that they want to go and try these things out so that way their interest is their doing and not me forcing them to do something that they don’t want to. I have found over the years that if you rush kids into these things they take a disliking to those activities and don’t want to do them at all as they grow older. I look forward to many more days on the ice with him and watch that excitement grow in him over the coming years.

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