Today was the first time my 4 year old granddaughter went fishing!!

 Last winter I gave her a Tweety Bird closed faced spinning reel on a 2’ Tweety Bird rod. The combo came with a little weighted 3 (3oz) fish that she practiced casting with on some of the nicer days. She got to the point that she could consistently hit her mothers car, or fathers truck parked in the driveway. She was allowed to cast from the deck, which should have been far enough away from the vehicles to prevent any damage. The various little dents in the car and truck proved her proficiency at casting this little 3oz wrecking ball. None of us figured on her being a power house caster at the age of 3 ½ (she just turned 4), and being as accurate as she is. How many little girls can cast a 3oz weight 15 yards, and consistently hit something the size of a hood, and to her Pappy’s amusement (yep, the chickens always come home to roost as my mother would say).

I have wanted to take her fishing for some time, but her Dad, (my son Mike) wanted to be there when she went, and always had a prior commitment. Late this morning he called and said Kelsey and he were going fishing and did I want to come along, I jumped at the opportunity. We met at Tuckerton Lake, it was windy and cool, but we gave it a shot, with no bites. We fished for about an hour which is about a half a day in kid time, and then Kelsey said she was hungry. We decided to meet at Stafford Forge after her lunch break. We met at the second lake, the wind was still howling but at least we could drop down off the road and be out of the wind. This was much more to Kelsey’s liking, there were all kind and sizes of stones that she could wail at will, some hitting Pappy on the back. It took her about two minutes at this location to get her right foot wet, and start complaining about her wet sock and shoe. After she removed her shoe and sock, and made Pappy put her wet sock in a plastic bag and in the zipper compartment of his fishing vest she decided to fish again. She cast pretty well, and is pretty adamant about doing all this stuff herself. Her Dad, started fishing along the bank, getting further and further from us, while Kelsey and I sat and fished, threw rocks and talked about the stuff Grandfathers and Grandkids talk about.. Pretty soon she was shoeless and sockless and dipping her toes in the 50 degree water and announcing it was very cold. Then she noticed her Dad was about 150 yards down the bank from us, she asked if she could go tell him about her wet socks. Since it was a straight line, and she would be about 50 yards from the water line, and I could see her the whole way, I told her it was ok, and off she went barefooted on the dirt road  at a dead run. Just as she got there, her Dad caught a small mouth bass, a nice size fish. She ran the whole way back to tell me, then turned and ran back to her Dad. This was a real adventure for her, when I caught a fish, she would run up to look, touch it, then run back to report to her Dad. When her Dad caught a fish she did the same thing. In the course of the three hours we were there, she must have run a mile and a half, the whole time barefoot. We moved to a couple of other spots in hopes of getting her a small pickerel or a sunfish, but we just couldn’t get her to connect. It was a good day, and I know one tired little girl that will sleep well tonight, and one Grandpa that had a ball, and who fell asleep in the middle of writing this. I encourage everyone to take a kid fishing, let them do what they want (within safety reasons), but let them have fun. She was already asking when we could do it again. Guess Pappy is going to have to get a car seat for the pickup.