Fishing With Kids

I gradually realised that the trips down to the river with my son should be carefully planned. Far more intricate details have to be considered than if I was going on my own, where it is simply a case of throwing some bait in a bag, and choosing a likely swim.

Fishing with children is similar to what I expect Churchill went through with the D-day landings. Every possible scenario has to be catered for, and every possible situation covered to allow the session to last more than 5 minutes.

So lets explore what you can’t do first.

You can’t go on a 3-day lake session, bivvy up and fish over 3 gallons of spodded particles. The likely scenario once the bivvy is erected, the rods are setup and the kettle boiled is “Can we go home now?”

The shorter trips may seem easier but may turn sour; a trip to a commercial for example. You may have to pay good money to go there, so you will want to get in the longest possible session. When we visited a local fishery, the problems became apparent straight away. This fishery has small wooden platforms that you ‘must’ fish from. Expecting a small child to stay stationary on a small 6 x 6 foot platform is like expecting a train to run on time, or the England football team to win easily!

Once my back was turned he was running up and down the bank singing. 15 minutes later the owner appeared asking him not to remove stones from the lake to build a wall in the car park. After catching a few small rudd, the inevitable happened, “Can we go home now?”

Jack on the banks of the Ouse

The type of fishing that you can do with your child has to be thought out hard. Kids are not good at stealth. I found this out to my cost when trying to stalk some chub in my local river. I had specially selected our clothing for camouflage, greens and browns the order of the day. He even had on a pair of cut-off camouflage shorts.

So, stalking along the river bank with him behind me, we spot a group of Chub basking in the sun only feet away. I crouch down and begin to fire some mixers past the Chub. Suddenly without explanation they all scatter. I was confused, as they couldn’t have seen me as I was crouched behind some reeds. I looked behind me to see my son doing windmill impressions with a large stick he had found on the floor.

So an inventory of items to take on the trip needs to be laid out.

First item to be packed, and maybe the most essential are the sweets. These enable the session to last longer than my first ever trip to the bank with my son, exactly 4 minutes. The types of sweets that are packed are very important. Sweets that are consumed within seconds are useless. Much better are ones that take ages to chew, or require fiddly unpacking. Chewits are perfect. One outer layer for the packet, a wrapping for the individual sweets and then of course the chewing, can see a packet taking more than 15-20 minutes of his time. I have learnt from my mistakes.

One of the first trips down to the river, my son asked “Where are the sweets then?” I pointed to the side pocket of my rucksack. Sweets and crisps were all devoured like he hadn’t seen a meal in days, followed by the dreaded “Can we go now?” I now play a game where he can only have his pick of the sweeties or crisps once we have caught a fish. It’s funny how he starts paying attention to the fishing.

Now, I am not advocating that you turn the child into and 18 stone sumo, but if it helps you get your fishing fix then why not. As long as it is only every 2-3 weeks, and you have an NHS dentist.

Jack with a Rudd from a commercial

I have found that another essential item for packing are maggots, and any session accompanied by them can be prolonged by hours. They are not for bait though. These are for the child to do hideous medical experiments on, that any deranged Doctor would be proud of. When I take out the maggots you can see his expression change from one of boredom, to a look of menace, and I start feeling sorry for the maggots.

Out come my forceps, pliers and scissors and they are laid out like an operating theatre. Each poor little maggot is then subjected to disembowelment, beheading and squashing, or whichever hideous torture my son can think up. One particularly memorable session I remember, he was taking out individual maggots and squeezing them until they burst. I had to stop him before I threw up.

I have spent a long time educating my son on what you might catch so that the whole trip seems like a huge adventure. Make out that you might just catch a Pike and educate them on the legends that surround them. Stories of Pike that devour ducks, small dogs and even children will all add to the experience. The child should think that you are going out to catch something that is akin to an 18th Century sea monster.

If you imagine back to when you were a child and saw pictures of old maps with enormous squid attacking boats full of men trying to fight them off with nothing but a long pointy stick, you may be getting close to what the child might be thinking. So, when you say, shall we go piking, his face will light up like I have just asked him if he wants to go to Disney land. However, if I said, “Shall we catch some Bleak”, the reaction may be more subdued.

The excitement of going Pike fishing is coupled with the fact that I have found that lure fishing is best as it keeps him occupied. I have found that he likes casting, although he is not the most accurate. Every other cast goes in the bushes 10 yards away on the same bank and I have even had to retrieve end tackle from a field of cows. They were not amused. We go through a little routine that I have found helps him remember. For those people that have been fishing for a long time, casting is second nature. Like driving, you just don’t think about it, it is all in the sub-conscious. Whereas for a 5 year old that is only just getting to grips with how to write the letter ‘a’, we have to go through a routine to remember. “Hold the line, release the bale arm, back and cast.” Repeat as necessary.

Looking ahead (and I can imagine this is true for most proud parents), I would love to think that my son can make something of himself. Probably selfishly, I would love him to be really good at something that I also have a passion for. It would be great to think that I could be a bank runner for him at a big money fishing contest, passing details of who has caught what and what bait is doing well. Or to be there to photograph him holding the record Barbel of 23 pounds.

However, I am under no illusion. I have heard many horror stories from friends at work. Apparently before they get to their teens, you should appreciate every waking minute that you have with them, because when they get older, they stop talking to you, cause mayhem wherever they go and appear to lose any kind of common sense that may have ever existed before.

I can imagine that my son will probably wear a hood at some point, he will probably smoke, and will probably start driving a Citroen Saxo very fast around our village. This will all be accompanied by music so loud it makes the house shake. All the kinds of things that I thought were a great laugh when I was his age. But that’s all in years to come, because at the moment I am still learning how to deal with him now, his character and his persona and like fishing, you never stop learning.

The two combined are an incredible combination that tests my patience to the limits and requires cunning that any fox would be proud of. In my years to come, when I am happily retired, and the hardest decisions that I have to make are whether to go fishing or stay in and eat cake, I hope I will look back and laugh at the times I spent with my son on the banks of the river, and probably shed a tear when I think of the memories that I have.