More Than Just The Catch

Fishing with little kids can either be the most fun and educational, or the most frustrating, outdoor activity ever. Pre-baby fishing days used to be spent in an ice shack for hours, hiking out to a back-country trout stream, or battling the waves to fish the big lake beyond the Apostle Islands. Now, we toss worms off the dock, and watch tip-ups out the window from the living room couch, with a cup of coffee (which isn’t too bad, either). I have always enjoyed the fishing experience, even if I don’t catch any fish—which is definitely important, since I am definitely not an expert and getting skunked is a pretty common result of my fishing trips—but fishing with kids has opened new doors to make every step of the experience an adventure in itself.

One of my favorite perks of living just so close to the shores of Lake Superior is being able to ice fish from my house. On a warm day (30+ degrees), we all go down to the Lake together as a family, and chase between holes as the tip-up flags fly, waving with the news of a fish on the line. Though the temps and weather in northern Wisconsin in the middle of winter can take a tole on a toddler’s desire to do anything, and if you didn’t know, the stamina for a 2 year old on the Lake Superior ice in mid-February is about 3 minutes…just enough time to get a line in the water before we need to pack back up and head in.

Luckily, we can set up the tip-ups quickly and run back in to enjoy hot chocolate as we watch with out binoculars out the window for an orange flag to pop up out of the white expanse of snow covered ice. Growing up, my dad would put us in a cooler lined with blankets and trudge us through the snow to go down to the Lake to check the tip-ups. Now, our kids watch with baited breath as Mommy or Daddy throws their boots on, runs down to the lake, and comes back up the hill, hopefully with a fresh-caught trout in hand. Teaching our kids to enjoy this time and the process of bringing fresh fish home for dinner—much the same way my father taught me and my siblings—has added a new and exciting experience to help pass the weekend days during the frozen Wisconsin winters.

The Gear

Getting ready for ice fishing this year I pulled all of my dad’s old gear, which hadn’t been used in at least 15 years, out of the garage and decided to fix it up and give it new life. The main project was replacing all of the line. Of course, Sage was fascinated by the reams of mono-filament piling up on the floor after clearing six reels of rotting line. “Daddy, look at the Curly-Q string” she would shout as she wrapped herself up in the leftover coils. She insisted on helping at every step. Holding the new spool of line as I repacked the reels, causing more tangles than successes; grabbing her own little ice-fishing rod and swinging it around in the air: “Daddy, look at my fishy pool!” and asking endless questions about the difference between tip-up line and jigging line.

Having so much “help” along the way made for slow progress—it took two weeks to finish replacing all the line…However, using the time together as a fun fishing experience, instead of rushing to get out to the lake, made everyone happier and grew Sage’s love and interest in the sport. Some day things won’t be so slow and she will either be off doing her own thing without me, so for now, I will take my time to teach her to take her time to appreciate the process.

The Bait

Given the short attention span of the little ones, live bait is the only way to go. Fishing summers at the small lake near our family cabin always starts with hunting for worms. Most of the time, turning over stones and lifting up logs trying to grab the wriggly jiggly worms before they give you the slip is more exciting than actually fishing. Give the kids a cup to hold and fill up with worms and they will be entertained for hours…we should send them out to hunt for worms more often.

If you didn’t know, shrimp love to be tickled on their bellies ;)

For ice fishing, we tie our own spawn bags. While cleaning a brown trout, Sage is in awe with the bright colors of the spawn: “Why are her eggs so orange? Its sticky!” she giggles as she dips her hands in the bowl full of roe waiting to be tied. You can buy spawn bags (fish eggs tied up in thin orange netting), but doing it together adds a bit of magic to the sport.

We use live shrimp when fishing from the beach in Florida. The kids try their luck at catching a big one out of the bait bucket. After catching one, the little legs tickle their fingers and the shrimp flop and flip in a last-ditch effort to escape. Occasionally, the shrimp falls in the sand and gets grabbed by a waiting seagull or Great Blue Heron. The others are returned to the bait bucket, oftentimes missing a few of their legs that tickled a little too much. Whatever happens to the shrimp really doesn’t matter: catching a fish or feeding a gull. It all creates awe and interest.

Blue Gill were biting on bologna that day.

The Catch

After all the preparation, hunting for bait, and countless tangles of line, the culmination of a successful catch after teaching our kids to fish brings unimaginable joy to their faces (and ours). Sage caught her first fish when she was just over two years old on a piece of sandwich meat. She put the meat on the hook, dropped the line in the water of the edge of the dock, said “Daddy, I have a bite!” and pulled the fish up out of the water all by herself. (I did help set the hook after she yelled that the fish was on, but she did everything else). Now, every time we head back to the Cabin, Sage reminds us of the time that she caught a BIG fish, and wants to do it again.

It was honestly the same level of excitement when Kelsey caught a bonnet head shark on our recent trip to Florida. Although she was a little nervous that the shark was going to devour our children (bonnet head sharks are docile and have very little teeth), she let the kids get near enough to get excited that mommy caught a…BABY SHARK! (cue the Baby Shark song on repeat for hours). Tom (17 months) likely doesn’t really know the difference between a fish and a shark, but he kept running around the beach after this saying “Doo Doo Doo Doo.” …Big Blue Gill or baby shark. It’s more than just the catch.

The Dinner

The sensory learning experience of catching a fish is pretty awesome. After bringing home a few keepers, the kids giggle as I wiggle the dead fish around, they poke the fish’s eyeballs, and we wash the slime off in the sink. The first step in preparing the fish dinner is to see what our catch had for his last meal. We start by dissecting the tummy of the fish, finding crawdads or smelt from a recent feast, or even finding more spawn to tie; we especially get excited when we get to see a full fish (smelt) get pulled out another fish. Filleting out a fresh trout, the kids ask questions about the blood, the bones, and the color of the meat. They run their hands along the pin-bones and rub the slime between their fingers in full curiosity and appreciation. For every fish we catch and clean, Sage says “thank you fish for giving your life so that we can have a delicious dinner.” This gratitude continues to the dinner table: the only foods that our kids will consistently eat are fish and Annie’sMac-n-Cheese…Its a good thing that we have little ones who enjoy getting outside and getting their hands dirty to bring the fish home, we couldn’t afford to keep them satisfied when, given the chance, they will each eat 1-2 whole trout to themselves in a sitting.

In Northern Wisconsin on Lake Superior, fishing is a part of life. I have grown to love teaching the kids about the fishing process — that fish come from the Lake rather than from the grocery store — almost as much as the act of catching the fish. I am thrilled when the kids’ day-care teacher reports that Sage was telling her classmates that “Daddy cut his finger taking the skin off of dinner,” after I nicked my knuckle cleaning the day’s catch. To see the joy in their faces when they touch a wriggling worm, shrimp, or fresh-caught fish fills my heart with happiness. To hear them exclaim how excited they are to get outside and experience now adventures is the reason that I love being a parent.

All this said, you don’t have to tie your own spawn or wind a reel with your kids to make it a special experience. That’s not my point. I think, as much as each individual step of going fishing, giving the kids my attention, sharing their excitement, and offering them the opportunity to engage in and experience these new things is what spurs their imagination and interest. Someday things won’t be so slow, I’ll be able to go down to the lake with my rod and without a second thought, but hopefully they’ll still be by my side because of the time that I take with them today (instead of off doing their own thing). It’s more than just the catch.