I agree Gary. My kids aren't *super-thrilled* with it, often choosing to play on a gravel bar rather than fish - which is just fine... but they do pretty regularly come up and say, "I want to fish now." This NEVER happened until I took them to Rocky Ford and did just what you're describing - hook a hog and hand over the rod.
Even my 4-year-old can lob and roll cast. I'm not going to attempt the forward cast with him for another year, maybe two. He's so small I had to teach him this agressive lobcasting style... taught him to holler, "Get out there!" at the rig as he lobs or roll-casts. That method increased his power 2x and started getting the rig where the fish are. I have a photo of him perfectly fishing the seam below a riffle on the Naches with a shot-indicator rig. He hooked two fish on that seam and lost them. He was pretty bummed about it but I turned around his bummer by convincing him that he was doing AWESOME if he could just HOOK a wild trout and that even dad usually loses more fish than he lands. My ten-year-old has rapidly improved since he started catching some fish. He finally started believing me when I'd tell him he doesn't need to false cast much, if at all, and that short casts are almost always better than long ones. He's hooked up numerous times on his own at Rocky Ford, but the best was when he caught a small bow on the Yakima this year with a #10 orange stimulator. I pointed to the spot and he persistently cast to it until a fish rose... AWESOME STUFF. My favorite fishing pictures are of my kids :-) -tight lines- Jim Speaker -----Original Message----- From: Gary Meyers [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 8:01 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Kid Fishin' (was Secrets to Getting Away) I think the one thing that got my son turned on to flyfishing at a young age was feeling a fish on the line. When he was little, I would cast and hook a fish and hand the rod to him so he could reel it in (or try to, anyway). Didn't matter how big (or little) the fish was, just the sensation of having the fish on the line was a huge thrill. So that was the carrot. And as he got older, he had some motivation to learn how to cast, and hook a fish. Gary Meyers Kirkland >
