Fishing With My Grandson!
30494
Travel & Leisure > Outdoors
May 9, 2007
sharecropperbob
Fishing With My Grandson!
"Will you take me fishing Grandpa?" My 8 year old grandson Ben had been asking me to take him with me to the lake for almost a year. Tomorrow would be that day! He was so excited about going to the lake with me that I knew it would be hard for him to sleep tonight. I'll admit I was a little excited too! What better thing could a grandfather do for his grandson than to take him on a fishing trip; the male bonding thing! I was already giving myself the Grandfather of the Year award. Morning arrived and it was beautiful. God must have really meant for this day to be something special. It was a gorgeous morning; with a Robin's egg blue sky and small cirrus clouds drifting across the sky. I'd loaded the boat the night before with tackle boxes, rod and reels and an ice chest. We filled our carry cups with coffee and hot chocolate and headed out the door. We'd hooked the trailer to the back of the truck the night before and now we were on our way to the lake. Across from the boat landing where we would launch the boat, there was a store that masqueraded as a gas station/convenience store/ restaurant/tackle shop. For the fisherman it was a great place to visit and spend lots of money! They had everything one would ever need to stock a tackle box, grab a couple of sandwiches and fill up the gas can for the outboard motor. After we filled up the bait bucket with crickets, we drove across the road to the boat dock. After launching the boat and pulling the trailer into the appropriate parking spaces, we were ready to move down the lake to a spot where I had caught a lot of blue gills the year before. While I knew that Ben could swim, due to all the hours spent in the community pool, I still strapped around him a smaller version of my own life vest. We were fishing for blue gill bream. They were bedding and with the mirror smoothness of the water, we would be able to see those beds from our boat. They wouldn't be very deep because bream spawn in very shallow water. Bedding, or spawning fish are easy to catch, if you can get a fish hook anywhere near those beds. I cut the engine and drifted toward a little cove I recognized from the year before. Sure enough, before me there were dozens, if not hundreds of the small hubcap sized circles scooped out of sandy clay bottom of the lake. I moved within casting distance of the beds. My grandson was anxious to get his hook into the water, snatching his rod and reel out of its holder even before I could get the boat anchored. This is where the fun begins, I thought as I began showing my grandson how to cast the spinning outfit I had given him. Having grown up with Game Boys and cartoons 24 hours a day, showing him something new was difficult; he thought knew everything there was to casting a bait 30 feet out into the water. He cast and the bait with bobber flew about 10 feet straight up into the air and landed in the boat. No problem! On the next cast the cricket only sailed 3 feet from the boat. He was getting impatient. By now he was more attentive and after I explained how the reel worked, he began to improve upon his casting. I let him practice casting the bait off the side of the boat that was not near the bream beds. On his first cast with a cricket, the bobber went under almost as soon as the bait hit the water. He brought the large bluegill into the boat. It was a beauty! This was the first of many fish we caught that day, but he'll always remember that first fish. It wouldn't have mattered how big it was, it was the first fish he had ever caught all by himself. He wouldn't forget it and neither would I.
Bob Alexander is well experienced in outdoor cooking, fishing and leisure living. Bob is also the author and owner of this article. Visit his sites at: http://www.redfishbob.com http://www.bluemarlinbob.com
send email to sharecropperbob
Write a Review
Add to My Favorite
Refer it to Friend
Report Article
Other links owned by this user
If you have to hang wallpaper, do it the simple way. Don't let the job scare you!
Category:
Tips on the importance of testing a mattress before you buy. Forget the hype, let your body decide.
Category:
A nostalgic look at how food played a huge roll in making a Christmas day bright!
Category:
Tips on how to earn extra money through internet auctions such as eBay and Yahoo Auctions. You don't have to have a website to make money!
Category:
A guide to the removal of raccoons. They're not just in the woods, they've invaded the city. Tips on how to humanely deal with those pests.
Category:
Helpful hints about smoking a turkey for Thanksgiving or Christmas or any other winter holiday. It's not as hard as you think!
Category:
Today's bass fishermen not only use the finest tackle, boat and motor, he must also look good!
Category:
Bring your own minnows if you're planning to fish in Douglas Lake in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains!
Category:
Relieve stress by painting your room. Tips on painting and sage wisdom from an expert.
Category:
Good fishing tackle can be found in garage sales, yard sales and estate sales. Be in the right place at the right time.
Category:
Tips on campfire building, fire safety tips and memories of campfires past.
Category:
Shopping on Christmas Eve can be a hassle or it can be lots of fun!
Category:
They're back. A new year and a new litter of raccoons are driving me and my cat nuts!
Category:
A nostalgic look at ballroom dancing through the eyes of an aging gentleman with dancing feet!
Category:
Catching 40 pound catfish with your hands is not for the weak of heart. You've gotta be a little nuts to try this!
Category:
Early warning signs of diabetes. How to tell that you might be a diabetic.
Category:
Three small fishes and a hungry crowd! Sound familiar? Bream fishing and the finger of God!
Category:
Make decorating work fun. Pretend you're working on a masterpiece when you paint your room!
Category:
Other links at Travel & Leisure > Outdoors
1. Boats
A boat in common parlance is a watercraft, generally smaller in size to most ships. A boat consists of structures called hulls and some system of propulsion, such as paddles, oars, a setting pole, a sail, paddlewheels and so forth.The somewhat horizontal
Category:
In Maldive's waters you can find an abundance of marine life, which makes this place the perfect place for scuba diving.
Category:
For the avid sport fisherman, the ideal vacation or weekend get-away is going to include going to at least one hot fishing spot.
Category:
Alligators were the furthest thing from our minds as my wife Ana and I traveled along the coast of northern Florida. We had paid $23 to camp in our conversion van at a beautiful state park on the beach the night before. In the morning we saw a dolphin
Category:
Once a diver has achieved the basic certification course and gained experience with various dive sites and situations a technical scuba diving course can offer more in depth information.
Category:
Site Sponsor
Directory Statistics
Articles: 68309
Categories: 501
Yahoo Entertainment
