Panfisharific!

Lilly wanted to go fishing tonight and catch "100 fish," so K.C. & I took her to kid-friendly Sanatoga Park again.

We all caught fish...a mix of sunfish & bluegill.  Lilly caught probably the largest fish of all of them, this guy below.

Put a bend in the Barbie rod

She didn't catch her 100 fish (maybe more like 3) as her attention quickly wandered from casting & reeling to playing in the dirt and throwing rocks.

K.C. also gave her new rod & reel it's maiden voyage.

She did really good - probably caught 5 or 6 after she figured out what they were biting on.  If I'm "Troutrageous," she's definitely "Panfisharific!"

Friday Night Fishing

When I got home from work on Friday, I was informed by my wife that Lilly wanted to go fishing.  Nice!  So after a quick dinner, I dug up some worms from the garden, packed up the rods in the car, and Lilly & I, but this time Mommy (K.C.) came along too.

We headed over to Sanatoga Park again, it's very close to our house and very kid friendly.  It just makes fishing with a 4-year old easier.  After getting everyone rigged up - Lilly with her Barbie rod, K.C. with a spinning rod, and me with my tenkara fly rod - we all got our lines wet.

Well wouldn't you know it...Lilly caught the first two fish.  The first almost immediately.  Unfortunately, we haven't got the reeling in and unhooking the fish part down yet, so Daddy had to come over to help her a little bit.  The issue isn't physically being able to do it, it's not really wanting to be near the fish on the end of the line when it comes close to bank.  Hence, here's the picture of the first fish of the night....

...and a picture of Lilly about 10 feet away...

After that, we all ended up getting into some little fish.  No monsters, but enough action to keep us occupied with tight lines.

K.C. doesn't like to touch fish either...

Sanatoga Park - Take 2

Lilly & I decided to head out fishing again tonight.  But more important things first...Barbie Happy Meals at McDonalds.

Ok, 3 nuggets and some fries later, Lilly and I headed over to Sanatoga Park.  We tried the park the other night without much success, but I told Lilly "tonight, we'll catch some fish."

When we got there, there were lots of bugs in the air, and you could see lots of fish (I don't know what's in there) rising all over the place.  Lilly just wanted to cast her Barbie rod, so I let her at it.  She still gets it tangled up quite a bit waving it around before she casts...but when she gets a clean one off, look out!

In between untangling her line and taking pond gunk off her hook, I worked the edge of these lily pads (lower left) with my tenkara rod and a dry fly.

Unfortunately, Lilly didn't catch anything.  She refuses to let me buy her real worms because they are "yucky...blaaah," so instead she used trout magnet worms under a small float.  Luckily, she did find a big pile of rocks and dirt, and had fun throwing them in the water (& getting filthy from head to toe) to keep herself occupied since fishing was slow.  I kept asking her if she wanted to go home - after all, we went out for her to go fishing - but she kept saying "no Daddy, I want to throw rocks."  Hey, as long as she was having fun, that's all that matters.

Striking a pose.

A few small guys decided to hit my fly, which was good so I could at least prove to Lilly there were fish in the pond.  She got really excited when I had them on the hook, but when I tried to hand her the rod to bring them in she'd hug my leg and tell me "Ewww no, fish are icky."

These pictures are kinda bad, hadn't figured out that the camera/camcorder I was using really doesn't handle closeups well.  No biggie, at least is wasn't a pic of a 18" trout or anything.

Fishing With Lilly

As an extremely alert & aware 4 year old, Lilly has started to notice that I sneak out on the weekends to go fishing.  Of course (to my delight) she expressed this weekend that she wants to go too.  She had only fished once before at Mom-Mom & G-Daddy's house in Florida, so tonight I took her, not sure what to expect.  The destination was Sanatoga Park (about a 5 minute drive from our house) where they have a small pond for fishing.

I had never been there, so I assumed we'd be looking at fishing for sunnies.  I asked Lilly if she wanted to me to get some worms - and she said, "No Daddy, we catch fish with bread," clearly taking a cue from her mom's Boca Raton fishing exploits...

K.C. circa 2007 with fish caught with "bit o' bagel"

Let me say this, I think for a 4 year old Lilly is pretty good at casting.  She was slinging that pink "glow in the dark" Barbie rod around like KVD.  I was really impressed.

What a big smile!

Unfortunately, we didn't catch any fish in the hour we were there (6:30 PM - 7:30PM).  The sunnies were active, eating chunks of bread Lilly chummed the water with, but they seemed more interested in the bright orange bobber than the bread on Lilly's hook.  I'll also take some of the blame...I really didn't have the right size hooks, they were a bit large for the size of the little fish we were feeding.

Watching the bobber intensely

I was fearful that not catching any fish would ruin Lilly's attitude for fishing again in the future, but luckily we found some other diversions to keep her entertained in between casts.  Feeding some bread to a family of geese, skipping stones, nature photography, and climbing & jumping across rocks to name a few.

Family of Geese - Lilly took this picture all by herself

The best news, Lilly has already told me she wants to go again - and next time she wants to use my rod!