Holdzit Contest 2 "Fishing with Kids"

[Jennie@ifish]

Next contest for Holdzit, "Fishing with Kids!" Yeah! It can be funny, amazing, or endearing. Just enter! I got some Holdzit products and had more fun last night getting out my steelhead gear and organizing it! Just start writing!
The winner of the last contest and the contest rules are at: http://www.ifish.net/holdzit.html

Ho ho holdzit!
Jen

[THE REEL HEY_YALL]

My youngest brother Justin, and I were fishing this very small pond back on our farm. We had to walk about 2 miles to get to this pond. Killed a water moccassin too right when we got there. I have a phobia of snakes so of course it was just going to be one of those days. I discovered fish in the old hog pen water hole, so we were fishing. I catch some bass, Justin catches some. You have to twist his arm to get him to go fishing so that right there made me happy to have him by my side. Of course, he had his 3' mickey mouse rod-n-reel and a beetlespin. Well it was getting boring to him because he had only caught 2 fish. All of the sudden while his line was just resting on the bottom, his rod starts dragging off into the water, where he jumped up and grabbed it, set the hook, and fish on! Oh she was a beauty. A 5lb-er on a 3' foot rod is something to watch. By the grace of God and 15 minutes of fighting, I lipped the fish for Justin. He was exhausted and just so proud of this fish. To a 6 yr old (at the time) this was the biggest fish in his career of fishing so he wanted to get the fish mounted. He puts the bass in the bucket, and half the fishes body was poking up out of the bucket. Justin proceeds to walk all the way back to the house to get the grandparents...2 miles away. I am in charge of guarding the fish. I got to looking at the fish and it was a female full of eggs. I decided to release the fish. An hour later, everyone shows up wanting to see his prize catch, cameras everywhere, etc. When I broke the news of what I had done, you haven't seen a more disappointed child in your life. He still rarely ever fishes, but has since caught one bigger, and on his own decided to release her as well. I went home for Thanksgiving and of course 8 years later, he still brings that fishing story up. Poor guy. He is coming out here for Christmas, and I have a guided steelie trip lined up...he doesn't know what a fight or big fish is yet

[PeterMac]

I don't have any particularly amuzing stories about taking my 4 kids fishing. All I can say is that I have made every effort I can, including buying a bigger, safer boat, to make my outings, family outings. We primarily go crabbing, because that is the most action for them, but we have done a little fishing. My favorite picture at my desk is my 8 year old, Ian, proudly holding two trout we caught at Lake Lytle.

We have lots of plans for the future.

PeterMac

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If you think old growth forests are beautiful, you should see the lumber they make!!

[Spoons]

My folks live on a houseboat on Sauvies Island so in the summers we spend a lot of time there swimming. My three year old loves to fish every time we are there. He too has the 3' Mickey rod which he loves. Any way one day fishing for northern pike minnow he was getting several bites and was having fun watching his bobber go up and down. Usually I set the hook and reels them in. But on this day he wanted to do it all. Well he set the hook on one and landed it and was very proud carrying it inside the house and telling everyone that it was a "tricky" fish. After that it was released and he wanted more. By now he has a audience and the bobber goes way down and he trys to set the hook and fish escapes, after he realizes this he yells "Dammit", and everyone cracks up.

I guess you had to be there.

[searun]

Spoons-
Your story sounded exactly like a day I had with my oldest son out on a houseboat on Hayden Island when he was about three. Same set up, Mickey pole, worms and catching what ever was on the bottom of the channel. I caught a couple of small minnows and suckers and showed him how to do it. He had some early success and then a long dry spell (a steelheader in training). After a lot of false alarms, I started taking my time getting over to him. Well when he really started hollering, I noticed his pole was halfway into the water. He was trying to reel it up but not having any luck. So he handed it to me and to my astonishment I pulled up a small strugeon that was almost as long as his pole. This was on a size 6 hook and a worm! And God knows what test. He was beaming and the first thing that came out of his mouth was "my fish is bigger than daddy's!" This absolutely delighted him to no end and he didn't let me live it down for a long, long time.

[Paranoid]

Every year our extended family spends a week at Curlew Lake in NE Washington. We have a family fishing derby with a nice trophy going to catcher of the biggest trout.

A few years back I was determined to give my 5 year old son a chance at the trophy. We fished constantly for the first three days but could not get anything over twenty inches.

On the morning of the fourth day, just as the sun was breaking my son hooked into a fish...a nice fish...this fish could indeed be a contender. It was all I could do not to physically help him with the fish. He fought itsingle handed like a seasoned fisherman. The fish made several long runs, jumped repeatedly, finally ended up in the net. I'll never forget the look on his face as we measured it. What a beauty....
24 3/4".

Dad, I did it!...I did it!...All by my self! He repeated this over and over. I put the fish on the stringer. It dwarfed the three 15 inchers caught earlier. He held up the stringer for a couple of quick pictures. He could not wait to get back to the dock to show of his prized fish. "I bet this is the trophy winner". I told him over and over. I looked him in the eye, gave him a hug, and exclaimed "Son, nicely done!"

I slipped the stringer back over the side to keep them cool......AHHHHGGGGGG! I realized that I had forgotten to snap the hook back onto the boat. I watched in horror as the stringer began it's final decent towards the bottom.

With out really thinking I pulled out my wallet, kicked off my shoes, and over the side I went. I dove until I thought my ears were going to explode. The water was much colder down here...One more stroke...GOT IT!

With a death grip on the stringer, I headed for the surface, fighting the need to inhale. I could see the siloette
of the bottom of the boat on the surface above me. I kicked and clawed towards the surface, the pressure in my ears was unbearable, my lungs ready to explode. I broke the surface with a gasp. Coughing and choking I carefully handed the stringer to my son. His eyes were as big as silver dollars, his mouth agape.

He helped pull me back into the boat, handed me a towel. Looked me me right in the eye and proclaimed,,,,"Hey Dad, nicely done!".

15 years later he still cherishes his first trophy. Almost as mush as I cherish the memory of that morning on Curlew Lake.

[Snagly]

My six year old son Max used a 6 1/2' medium action spinning rod with a closed faced spinning reel. The rod is so long that when he hooks a big fish, I usually kneel down behind him and grab the foregrip to make certain the rod doesn't get launched into orbit. Max hangs on, too, and cranks and pumps the fish in by himself.

We were fishing at the local saltwater pay pond and Max hooked up a 10lb barramundi (sort of like a snook). The fish was ripping line off and jumping to beat the band. I was more excited than Max as I crouched behind him and gave him instructions (perhaps helping pump the rod a little more than usual). "Dad, it hurts!" Max cried out. I thought, yep, those fish that pull hard sure do tire out the arms. "It's OK, Max. You're reeling him in. Keep it up!" A little while later, Max said "Dad, it STILL hurts! Every time you pull the rod it's CRUSHING MY *****!" Despite my laughing so hard I almost cried, we managed to catch the fish.

(I had inadvertently put the rod handle between his legs, so each vigorous pump was causing "some" discomfort as I practically lifted him off the ground. I'm now waiting till he turns 13 to see if I did any lasting damage . . . .)

[happybrew]

Geez. How am I ever going to top these stories? The fishing trips with my kids have been pretty plain by comparison. One time, however, the funny story came, not during the trip, but afterwards. When my two oldest were 5 and 3 years old, I took them to E.E. Wilson pond when it had been stocked with brood trout. We went in the morning, as my oldest had afternoon kindergarten. The kids were plunking powerbait, and I was casting Kastmasters. I hooked the only fish we caught that day, and had the kids reel in their lines to take turns fighting the fish. I gave the rod to both of them, first one, and then the other. I had to help them hold the rod up. It was taking out line, and they couldn't reel against the fish. When it got out too far, I'd take the rod and work it back in, then give the rod back. When we finally played it out enough to land it, I grabbed it and pulled it up on the bank. The first thing that comes out of my 3 year old's mouth is "Now we hit it over the head, right? Hit it over the head Daddy! Hit it over the head!" I had no idea a 3 year old could be such a bloodthirsty barbarian! We had caught a 32 inch buck, and when we landed it it started oozing milt. Naturally, they wanted to know what it was, so I explained it to them, how the male fish makes sperm, and the female fish makes eggs. The questions just kept coming, and there was no avoiding them. So I explained how big fish go about making little fish. Then they ask me if that's how people do it too. "Daddy, where did you and Mommy spawn? I wasn't born in the water was I?" So I was forced to explain to them the facts of life, from a biological point of view, without any anatomical details involved, other than that it happens inside the Mommy. Luckily they didn't ask how the sperm got inside the Mommy, because then I would have been forced to feign complete ignorance about that aspect of human reproduction. Shortly afterward, it was time to leave and take the oldest to kindegarten. I dropped him off at his classroom, and he immediately gushed to his teacher all about his fishing trip and the big fish we caught. Then he says "And it was making sperm all over the place! It was yucky! They fertilize the eggs with sperm!" and he proceeded to tell his teacher all about fish reproduction, and then all he knew about human reproduction as well. I think I have never been such a bright shade of red before. I guess they're never too young to have an interest in science. I can only hope that their interest in such matters remains purely academic until they are well into adulthood.

happybrew

[Jennie@ifish]

Great stories! Bringing this to the top so people can find it!
Jen

[Salmonator]

Two years ago I was fishing for winters off the bank of the n.fork Alsea with my wife and my oldest son Sean (who was 9 at the time) on my wifes b-day. Sean started by landing an 8lb fish right at first light. After tagging the fish as quick as possible, he ran back down to the bank and in his haste tripped and landed waist high in the river (7am in January, frost on the ground). Luckily I brought mr heater and he was able to warm up some. We move down river a few miles and tried another spot. After I landed a small buck we all huddled around the heater again to warm up. A few minutes later, Cheryl did a Babe Ruth and pointed to the spot that she claimed she would pull a chromer out of. Sean must have sensed something because before she could even get to her pole, he grabbed his and put a cast into that spot and pulled out a pure chrome hen. I'm not sure what the odds are of a 9yr old kid pulling off one like that, especially after falling in an icy river several hours before. Anyway, Cheryl did get her chance at her b-day fish three casts later but it wiggled off. Oh well, we were both happy to see Sean get his first drift-fished filled tag. He deserved it that day... Joe

[Jennie@ifish]

Please keep the topic here to the fishing with kids theme.
Just spent quite a while hand deleting some posts that were interesting, but not proper for this thread.
Thanks!
J

[Jennie@ifish]

Bringing this to the top so you can have a chance to enter if you haven't. Will be picking it tomorrow~
Come on, win Holdzit stuff!

jen

[Capin' Dan]

Oh what memories,
Once when my seven year old daughter and I were fishing the Connecticut River for small mouth using Berkly Power worms.
I see the cast close to shore and then see the line start to move up river. I was excitely (Yelling) telling her to reel in the slack and set the hook. She did that quite well and man what a chain of events that set off. I have never seen a fish of any species (Including silvers) take to the air as much as that fish did and the air it got I bet was three feet high sometimes. It must have jumped eight to ten times and just peeling line from the reel. After about ten minutes or so she brought the fish to the boat and we got it aboard. We were both so excited just knee knocking, hands shaking, adrenline rush. After a couple of minutes of looking at the fish she looks at me and says "Dad you know what we have to do, any fish that fights that hard deserves to go free". So we released it back into the river. I will never know just how big that fish was (My wife says that it grows each time we tell the story, which is the way it is supposed to be). I know that I have never caught a small mouth that compares to it.
Oh what memories!!!!!!!!!!

[Extreme]

As the father of 5 girls (Ages 4-10) I have many, many fishing stories of adventures with them. When I'm 85yrs old, I hope that I will remember these stories such as:
1) Taking a 3 yr old to Battleground Lake, her catching her first trout and then trying to talk to the trout when she landed it. I don't know what cartoon she had seen or what, but for some reason she thought that fish could talk. The people around us kinda backed away after that....Hmmm? Now we all roar with laughter when we talk about it.
2) We're plunking lower Columbia Rvr Summer Steelhead. Oldest one is finally old enough to fish her own rod. Her bell on the rod goes off! Everyone on the beach is yelling for her to grab her rod! I'm so excited for her that I'm practically having a coronary! She is right by me playing Barbies in the sand. She looks at me, looks at the crowd, sums up all of us loonies and says, "Dad, will you get my rod, I just poured water in the Barbies pool....."
3) Same scene, plunking Lwr Col Rvr Smr Stlhd, same daughter, different day. No matter which rod goes off, hers or mine, I cannot beat her to it. She sets the hook and lands 'em all. Did the same thing to me in the driftboat hotshotting last winter.
One more and one of my daughter's favorites:
4) Again, plunking. No fish hooked yet. About 30 rods fishing. One of my daughters with me fishing her own rod. Someone starts a pool: $1/person to enter, first fish landed gets the pot of money. I put in $2 for my daughter and I. High slack turns around. Anticipation is in the air. Everyone is talking about who is going to get the pot of money? Down the beach a rod goes off! Fish on for some lucky soul. As they are playing the fish, everyone goes down to watch them land it, except my daughter who knows she needs to stay by her rod. All of a sudden, my daughter's rod goes off! She grabs it, fish on! It's a double fish on and it's a race to see who will land their fish first to win the pot of $$. We hear a low "AAAAUUUGGH" from down the beach as the guy loses his fish. All eyes are on my daughter. Shortly thereafter my daughter beaches hers and wins the pot of money! We take photos of her holding the pile of $1 bills and her fish too. She is the hero of the beach for the rest of the summer. On the way home she made me stop at Bobs so she could buy a new tackle box and fill it with Spin N Glos.
Those are some of my favorite kids stories...
x

[WaterDog]

These stories are really good!

A few years back me and my step daughter Sarah were springer fishing above Newberg. She was about 8 at the time and had never really done much fishing other than trout once or twice in her life. She really didnt know there are bigger fish out there until she started fishing with me. Anyway, so we got up 4 am one Saturday, just her and I. Mom and sister werent about to get up that early. It was a typical late june morning. We were playing cards when the reel started screaming. I grab the rod and start playing the fish. She runs up front, releases the anchor. I had the kicker going and the chase was on. She grabs the net and is ready! She has never netted a salmon before and I really wasnt sure if I should let her but what the heck. I give her some quick instuctions and tell her to scoop up the fish when I say go. Sure enough, just as instructed, she nets a nice bright 12# chinook. I'm thinkin', wow, better than most of the guys I fish with.

She's 11 now and still one of my favorite fishing buddies!

[hawgcatcher]

I have two granddaughters that like to fish. The Oldest one is twelve and she loves to go with her dad. On opening day of trout season last year, they went to coffenbury lake near Astoria. She was very quiet and watched her pole. She caught some small trout and was pretty happy. She then told her dad that she was going to catch a very big fish and he better watch out. Her dad just laughed and told her it would pull her in. Five minutes later, her line started to go out and she picked up her pole and said, "Dad, her it is." The pole started to bend and it kept bending. She held on and played that fish for a few minutes. She got it to the bank and her dad nearly fell in. It turned out to be an eight pound Steelhead that had been released into the lake. Now when her dad starts to tell his fish stories, she just sez "Dad, lets tell about my fish." He then turns red. He is proud of her.

Now my second fishing granddaughter is five and is a doll. Always a smile. My son and I took her out on Hagg Lake to fish for Bluegill. We were in a small cove and put a worm on her hook. We figured that she would maybe catch a bluegill and would be happy. She was patient and sure enough, she caught a small bluegill. She was happy and laughed and laughed. She even wanted us to release it. Her dad and I were fishing with plugs for bass and she stuck with a worm. She pulled out a big worm out of the bedding and said, "A big worm for a big fish." We all laughed at that and put the worm on the hook. She even cast out the worm and bobber rig with her little snoopy rod. It hit the water and immediatly started to go away from the boat. I watched her and without being told, started to reel in. The fish fought and fought and she kept reeling and holding the pole. Her dad asked if she wanted any help and she said no it was her fish. After about five minutes she brought it to the boat and I lipped it. We weighed the Big Bass and it was three pounds and some ounces. We asked her if she wanted to release it but she said no that the fish was to be her dinner that night. It was fillet out and she ate everybit of the fish.

These little things with my grandkids make me happy. They are growing up with some values in fishing. They all know about catch and release and why we do that. I hope that these girls wind up marrying some guys that love the sport too.

'

[dummy]

man great stories. ok my dad, his friend mike and my fishing buddy james went catfishing in the backwaters of this lake. mike and my dad were qite happy with there poles on the forked stick and drinking beer. me and james wanted to cacth some fish so we asked and mike let james go but with a life vest we griped about it but the life vest stayed on. he was about six and i was about 13. we waided out into the lake and i sat him on top of a log in about 3' of water and we started fishing he maid a fine cast rite next to some lily pads and my cast got tangle in some 20 yards away. i went and tried to get it untangle but will in the middle of get it unhooked james started screeming that he had a big one and i just ya ya him. until i heard a big splash and james was getting towed around buy amonster cat the life vest was helping but only when the fish was not puling other wise he was getting a dunking. i set my pole on the lily pad and tried to run over to him but my shoes got stuck in the mud so once free james was almost crying and yelling for his dad. both dads ran over and started screeming at me while running out to james. i got a hold of james and the 10lb chanelcat came to the surface then it took of just as mike grabed it and broke the line mike wrestle with it for a second then it got away. after a long lecture we sat around drinking beer and relived the whole thing. and james bousted that he told us he was going to cacth a fish big enough to go water sking behind. rootbeer that is . this is one of my most cerished memories. me and my son are working on more.

[Jennie@ifish]

What a great bunch of stories.
With the help of Pat at www.holdzit.com, we picked the winner!
Go to:
http://www.ifish.net/holdzit.html
to see who we picked! It wasn't easy, there were SO many good ones! Please, do yourself a favor, and enter some of these in the chicken soup for the fishermens soul at the URL located on RWs post. I think they are all worth sharing!
Jen