I knew from the moment my son was born that I wanted to get him interested in fishing. Yes, I love the sport, but there’s also a ton of great reasons that fishing would make his life more meaningful, and I truly believed that it would be in his best interests to take it up.
Even so, one of my worst memories of childhood was being forced into activities that I hated. I knew that going fishing had to be my son’s choice, but I was hoping to influence it. Thus, I had to introduce him to fishing in a way that would interest him.
Below, I’ll discuss the reasons I hoped my son would enjoy fishing. I’ll then discuss what I did to help his initial experiences go as well as possible.
I’d also like to mention that I have a book for sale, Fishing with Kids: A Parent’s Guide
Why I Wanted To Interest My Kid In Fishing
Fishing is a wonderful pastime to share with your children and one that will benefit their lives in many ways:
- It will help get kids away from the electronics;
- They’ll learn independence;
- Fishing will help make reading fun;
- Spending time in nature will make them more thoughtful and caring stewards of this planet.
Fishing: The Anti-Screen
Screen time is a serious problem with kids these days. It seems that ever-younger children are more interested in an I-Pad or smart phone than a box of toys. After all, it’s tough for static toys to compete with the crazy colors and sounds of the latest YouTube phenom.
Well, I’m here to tell you what all the other fishing parents know: Baby Shark has nothing on a bluegill.
If you get your kids involved in fishing they’ll want very little to do with the screens. Instead of fights over the smartphone, you’ll start seeing them pout about leaving the lake early. It’s a great problem to have!
Fishing Teaches Kids Independence in a Healthy Way
Kids can’t wait to grow up. They need a good measure of control in their lives and if they don’t get it, they start acting up. Fishing is a great outlet for this because it allows children a healthy and safe way to gain independence.
Every kid wants to push boundaries and see what they can get away with, so you have two options:
- Be the “End Boss” or “Level” they try to beat; or
- Let the fish fill that role for you.
It’s great seeing how determined my son is to cast his own rod, and hold his own bass. All of these things have a small amount of “danger” to them, which makes it exciting for him, but none of them are so bad that he’s likely to get seriously hurt, especially since I practice what I preach in my article on Safety Tips for Fishing With Kids. Anyway, letting him take some control on a fishing trip is far better than having him try to pull away from my hand in a parking lot.
Fishing Helps Kids With School
You might find that your child’s new fishing hobby sparks another vital one: reading.
Some of my earliest memories were of thumbing through the old In-Fishermen books on northern pike or smallmouth bass. I’d look at the pictures of the trophy fish and study the diagrams of prime fishing locations for hours. I’m pretty sure I knew how to read a topographic fishing map well before Goodnight Moon.
When I did finally learn how to read proper words, I spent a lot of time reading fishing books. These taught me about seasonal patterns of fish and the world in general. I learned about erosion and the classification of lakes and reservoirs. Concepts such as the circle of life and the need for a selective harvest were ingrained in my soul. I was reading technical books as an elementary school kid, and loving it. This would help me read and craft technical letters later on in life.
I see my son following down this path. When we go to the lake, he wants to know what type of fish live there, where we’ll find them, and what they’ll eat. He asks questions like, “Daddy, are rock bass called rock bass because you catch them near rocks?” or “Daddy, have you ever caught a pickerel with a lure that looks like a perch?”
When I point out that there are many birds in an area and tell him that bodes well, he wants to know why. When I explain it’s because the birds also eat fish and they aren’t going to hang out in unproductive areas, you can see the gears turning in his head – he gets it.
It’s all pretty simple: if you get your kids interested in going fishing, they’ll also be interested in reading about fishing.
Fishing Makes Kids Thoughtful Stewards of Planet Earth
Fishermen are the great stewards of our natural lakes and rivers. We have a vested interest in our national waterways and tend to do what we can to preserve them. If we don’t, our hobby will eventually end.
The people most likely to preserve this world are those out living in it. Thus, the best chance Mother Earth has is if more kids to go out in the world and respect it. Fishing is great for that.
How I Sparked My Kid’s Interest in Fishing
To reap all these benefits, you need to somehow spark your child’s interest in fishing. I’m very fortunate in that I was able to do this with my son, and I hope to give you a few tips for how you can get your own children interested in fishing.
My son is about to turn four, yet has been catching fish “all on his own” since before he was two. Sure, I’m there to help, teach, coach and guide him (and deal with the hooks, or “sharp things” as we call them), but he has long been capable of casting, hooking, fighting, and landing his own fish for years now.
To say my kid loves fishing would be an absolute understatement. He was potty trained on a boat, and one of his first words was “crankbait.” He longs for adventures to the lake, would tire of an I-pad quicker than a fishing pole, and would rather spend time climbing around on the boat than the playscape I built him! The hardest part of any fishing trip with my son is getting him to come home!
This wasn’t forced on him by me by any means, and he can stop whenever he wants. All the same, I hope that this passion lasts a lifetime. I have this theory that the more money my son spends on fishing when he is a teenager and young adult, the less money he’ll have to spend on getting in trouble! I also think it’s important for him to connect with nature in a time and age where you see less and less kids playing outside. Learning self-reliance and being able to catch his own food when “the zombies come” are nice perks, too.
The Five Steps I Took to Make Fishing Interesting for My Kid
With all that in mind, I started teaching my kid to fish when he was only a toddler. My goal was to try and spark this passion and acclimate him to the sport.
While there are a lot of great articles out there with some detailed tips, I couldn’t really find much about how to get a kid interested in fishing in the first place. Here is a high-level overview of the steps I took to accomplish this:
Step 1: Basic Acclimation
When my son was very young (about 10-11 months) I started taking him out on boat rides and showing him the fish that I would catch. At this point, of course, he was just spectating, but as anyone who has ever taken a toddler to an aquarium will know, children are fascinated by fish. In fact, one of our first “field trips” together was to the fish hatchery!
When I would show him a fish, I’d point out how pretty they were, let him touch them (not too roughly – you don’t want to hurt the fish!) and just explain what they were.
Every time I’d catch a fish, I’d make a big deal out of showing it to him, and his mother would help him towards the bow to see the latest prize. I wanted to get him acclimated to the water, so my kid would be as interested about fishing as possible.
Step 2: The First Casts
As summer ended, I decided to teach my kid how to reel in a fishing lure.
I went and bought a small spinning rod (specifically, the Zebco Dock Demon
We made a game out of reeling in the line and watching the crankbait move across the floor. I wanted him to be used to this so that when I eventually handed him a rod with a fish on it, he would know what to do. Eventually, I started tugging on the crankbait while he was reeling it in, to show him what a fish would feel like.
Before long, my son learned how to reel in the line, which is a critical step to catching fish!
Step 3: Fishing Next to My Son
Once there was open water, I started taking my son fishing with me more often. I would cast the line and try to hook a fish. Once once the fish was on, I would hand him the rod and have him reel it in. Again, I’d say “Reel, reel, reel!”
My goal was to set up for situations where we were likely to catch numerous fish. You really want to make sure that they’re successful while they fish, so your kid stays interested. I targeted panfish, and went to locations where they would normally be present. I further stacked the deck by chumming a bit (check to make sure this is legal in your area, but if it is, rabbit food works great!). We’d also bring his little ice fishing rod so he could practice reeling it in next to me. It was pretty cute to see him try to work it like a jerkbait just like daddy!
Remember, if you want to keep your child interested in fishing, you need to make it fun for them. Consider reading this article I wrote on how to make fishing fun for kids for tips on exactly how to do that.
Step 4: My Son’s First Casts
As he got a bit older, he started to want to do everything on his own, including casting.
I decided to use a spinning rod to teach my kid how to cast. I get that this is a bit against the grain as most people start with a spincast combo, but I wanted something that he would use his entire life, and there are for more applications for a spinning reel than a spincast reel.
Admittedly, the spinning reel was challenging for tiny hands, but he was able to get the hang of casting by using one hand to hold the line and the other to cast.
When I go fishing with a kid who is learning to cast, I try to find areas that hold fish, but also give the child enough space to catch them without getting hung up. You wouldn’t want to take a kid fishing along a forested bank, for example, as you’d spend most of your day climbing trees to get the lures loose.
Step 5: My Own Little Fishing Buddy
Once my son could cast on his own, we would go out on the boat together and each of us would have our own rod. I would still hand him anything that I hooked on mine, but he would also catch plenty of his own. This constant action helped to keep my kid interested and engaged while we fished, so he didn’t get bored.
Many times, I’d leave the boat docked while fishing with my son. Panfish tend to use the boat for shade and aren’t scared of being under it, especially if it hasn’t moved in awhile. This, coupled with the rabbit food, did a marvelous job of setting up a fun fishing trip for my kid, and allowing him to have success “all on his own.”
It was important to him to be independent and about the only things he didn’t do on his own were putting worms on a hook or taking fish off of one. Frankly, I think he could have handled both, but I didn’t want to risk him getting hurt.
One Last Piece of Advice: Stay Relax
You will never create or maintain your child’s interest in fishing if the experience goes poorly. Make sure you keep a level head and maintain your cool. I wrote an article about how to make fishing with kids stress-free and recommend that you check it out. While you can overcome a fishing trip or two where you don’t catch anything, one temper tantrum can ruin the sport for your kid for life.
You Can Do This Too!
By following these five steps, I had a blast teaching my child to fish. I hope they are helpful to your family as well.
Just remember that during all steps, the goal is to have constant action for the child. If you’re doing all the catching, go somewhere that you’ll catch a bunch of small fish so your children constantly have something to look at.
The need for constant action is a great reason to take a grandparent, wife, or aunt along who can also hook some fish of their own to help keep things going.
Really, the most important thing you can do in steps 3, 4, and 5 is locate or draw in a large amount of fish so that there aren’t many lulls in the action. If you can do that when you take your kids fishing for the first few times, you’ll hook them for life.
I hope this helped provide a high-level “vision” for how to get your kids interested in going fishing. In my next post I will focus on some tips for how to prepare for a fishing trip with kids to make the first few trips successful, which is critical to sustain their interest.
As always, if you found this article helpful, please consider sharing it so it can help others.
Thanks,
John Paxton