Smiles & Life-long Memories Created By Fishing Success

June 22, 2006
Fishing
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This recipe is quite simple. Take one kid with a limited amount of fishing experience…place a fishing pole in his hand…and take him to a northern Minnesota lake. What you’re likely to get is a budding sportsman with a smile nearly a mile wide.

That’s what happened when I took my new stepson, Luke, with me fishing this past weekend. Like many kids his age, fishing is a big fascination because the experience is always so new and exciting. In the past, Luke has been bobber fishing with his dad for panfish, but never anything beyond catching a few crappies or sunnies. So, when I gave him a closed-faced spinning real and told him to learn to start casting…the challenge was immediately exciting for both of us to watch his skills mature.

I placed a Mepps spinner on his line and told him to keep throwing it and eventually he would catch a fish. About 35 minutes later, he proved me correct. This small Northern Pike moved into the shallows in front of the dock where we were sitting as dusk started to set in. Why was this fish so significant? Well, it was the first fish young Luke actually caught with no assistance from anyone. He casted…he retrieved…and he landed a nice fish that was nearly as excited as the fisherman on the other end of the line.

It was a special moment for me as a new stepfather, too. First, it is important to me that my stepson gets to experience as much as he can in the outdoors. But it also brought back a flood of memories of my first fish, which also happened to be a pike.

Now that I’m in my 40’s I must admit that I don’t have a lot of recollection of my early youth days. But there is one memory I’m quite sure I will never forget. I can tell you the location…the type of lure I was using…almost every detail of the experience. My only regret is there was no picture of my first fish. I imagine that my smile was quite similar to Luke’s…but I will never know. All I can remember is that on that particular day it was one of the most proud moments in my entire life…so I would be surprised if my face didn’t show the same enthusiasm.

In a way I was living vicariously through Luke’s 9–year old eyes last Saturday as we shared a special moment together sitting on a dock. Just 100 yards away there was a loon serenading us with the mystical sounds of the north-country…there were boats that moved a bit closer so they could get a better look at what would excite a kid so much to make him scream. I’m sure they were focused on getting a better look at the catch…but they should have looked closer at the kid, instead.

Oh, time will tell…but I have a hunch catching this fish cemented a life-long fascination with the sport this past weekend for this particular youth. Fishing has the power to captivate those who care to embrace the challenge…and a youngster who experiences a smile like this doesn’t soon forget that sort of sheer excitement…and neither will his stepfather.

Stay tuned…in tomorrow’s blog I’ll explain how we were able to top this special experience a few days later.