It’s a familiar scene: a tranquil summer evening, setting sun, calm water, several anglers idly casting from shore. The rhythmic lapping of water against the rocks is punctuated by a loud smack as someone slaps a mosquito.
Whether success comes through skill, patience or just plain luck, the thrill of a memorable catch is what fishing is all about.
Sadly, neither skill nor luck were present that evening on Kettle’s Lake. At dusk, the lids on the tackle boxes slammed shut, canoes pointed back to the landing and the familiar explanation “They’re just not bitin’ tonight” was muttered around the lake. My husband and son were among the defeated. After thoroughly fishing a weedy area that should have yielded results, they could only ponder their strategic shortcomings.
So you can imagine the sheer horror when my four-year-old daughter landed an 18-inch largemouth bass on her Snoopy rod, reeling it in from shore, right under the nose of her father and brother. She landed it, petted it, named it Freddy, and then released it amid the astounded stares of jealous anglers.
It’s not supposed to be this way.
Camping and fishing are synonymous to my kids. Our camping trips are orchestrated to provide the best fishing opportunities possible.
We arm ourselves with stacks of fishing magazines, towers of videos, spires of reference books and an intimidating arsenal of lures. But the kids break all the rules. They ignore the professional advice from the fishing gurus on television and make do without the latest gadgets from the fishing shows; and they still catch fish. Last summer, my friend’s daughter caught a bass using a dandelion as bait.
With their record of success, kids should be writing for the glossy fishing magazines. I can imagine engaging articles filling the following sections:
Bait and Equipment
• Pantry Bait— Reel them in with Marshmallows and Wieners
• 101 Things You Can Do with a Fishing Net (Other Than Catch Fish)
Tips and Techniques
• Back in the Box: How To Snorkel for Snagged Lures
• Tree Climbing 101: Ten Tree-Top Tips for Retrieving Lures
• Whose Line is it Anyway? Untangling Messes of Not-so-Monofilaments
• Getting Mom to Hook your Worm
Exclusive Features
• Landing Monster Sunfish!
• The Season’s Most Popular Names for Live-Release Catches
I suppose such magazine articles wouldn’t be serious enough for the average angler. After all, fishing is serious business. Too serious, if you ask me. I’ve never seen a kid come back in a bad mood after fishing with a marshmallow as bait, getting a soaker, or climbing a tree to retrieve a snagged lure.
Kids are great anglers because they’ll take fun over conventional wisdom any day. And when you have a tackle box, a bag of marshmallows and a few friends, who needs skill or luck?
Toss your line in these parks:
Kejimkujik National Park
Nova Scotia
pc.gc.ca/pn-np/ns/kejimkujik
In the spring the brook trout are active in lakes and streams. When the water is warm the white perch lurk in the shallows.
Killbear Provincial Park
Ontario
ontarioparks.com/english/killb.html
The clear Georgian Bay waters are home to walleye, whitefish, perch, pike and bass. A nearby lake trout sanctuary is shelter to a resurgent population.
Voyageurs National Park
Minnesota
nps.gov/voya/
Walleye, pike and smallmouth bass cruise the waters of this park adjoining the Boundary Waters Canoe Area on the
Canadian/U.S. border.
Yellowstone National Park
Wyoming
nps.gov/yell/
Trout rule in the 1,200 kilometres of rivers and 175 lakes in the oldest park in the U.S.
Waterton Provincial Park
Alberta
watertoninfo.ab.ca
Numerous rainbow, cutthroat, bull and lake trout rub scales with whitefish, pike and sculpin. One lake trout weighed in at 24 kilograms.
Lynn Iles loves fishing, she just doesn’t like to fish. She is a fishing facilitator who books the camping trips, documents the catches and listens to the stories when “They’re just not bitin’.”
This article first appeared in the Summer 2007 issue of Canoeroots Magazine.
