Sunday 8th September
I thought it was time I took my 6 year old daughter fishing. I bought her a "get it all for £9.99" kit. Whippy rod with unlined, insufficient rings, clunky reel and naff monofil. We went to the lifeboat pier in Bembridge with a bucket of worms left over from my trip to the harbour the day before. "We will go for an hour or so" I told her and bought a car park ticket for 2 hours to give us some setting up time. 2 and a half hours later we run out of bait. She has caught, no let me tell you my total first. I get 2 fish, one bass and one wrasse. She catches 25. Yes, 25 fish, all wrasse. Till the day I die I will NEVER forget the look on her face when she hooked her first fish!
:cool: :cool: :cool:
She had problems in learning to strike when there was a fish. She just started to wind. I try to explain how to lift the end of the rod a bit to strike, but then I think, "what the hell, she seems to be able to hook them" so I leave her to develop her own style. I started by helping her wind the fish up, but then she gets the hang of that and when she had done everything from cast to winding in her smile was even wider. (Can a person smile too far and the top of their head fall off?)
I was going back and forth to her to help her out, missed some very nice bites, , but I don't care. She is now hooked, I am glad we ran out of bait! We would still be there I think.
Now I get "Dad, can we go fishing at the weekend?" as soon as I get in. If people want to ban fishing, they will have to get past me & now Ellie too, and that I would love to see.......