fishin' the day away

It was an absolutely glorious spring day in New England! And we were fortunate enough to have signed up for a family fishing event today, so off we headed with our rods and reels and bobbers and hooks to spend a couple hours on the banks of a stocked trout pond. Never did land any fish, but the kids got plenty of opportunities to work on their casting skills, and there were lots of nibbles, I suspect from skilled worm-stealing sunfish.

The Map Man baits Zoo Boy's hook for him. Turns out little Zoo boy is quite the fishing natural, picking up on casting distance and accuracy amazingly quickly. We're starting to suspect that the boy is a future outdoorsman.


I gave J some lessons in casting. Took him a while to get the hang of it, but in his usual fashion, he worked diligently at it, and he was as proficient as his little brother by the time we were out of worms. I've been fishing since I was their age, it's nice to share a former (and perhaps future!) passion of mine with them.

One of the organized activities of the day was a casting game where kids used rubber plugs to "fish" for plastic fish. Despite being the smallest kid to give the game a whirl, Zoo Boy managed to land himself a nice flat blue fish. Just look at that surf-fishing style!

J enjoyed the casting game too, and was as proud of his plastic fish as he would have been of catching a live trout.

I guess we're going to have to schedule a bit more fishing time for the boys, and think about upgrading their equiptment. Their skills have already surpassed the ability of their small starter poles. Now if I could just remember where I stashed all that fishing gear....