Yesterday was a wonderful day of bonding with my four year old grandson.  We went fishing all day!  He spent the night at our house and was up before dawn. When I got up AFTER the sun had risen, the first thing he said to me was “I already have my fishing clothes on!”   I hadn’t planned on putting the boat in the water until much closer to noon, wanting to catch the turning tide which is best for finding bait.  Also in the back of my mind, I didn’t want to keep him out too long because, well, he’s four and I was concerned about his attention span, especially if we were not catching any fish.  But he was raring to go so I hitched up the boat and off we went!

He held up well while we were trying, mostly vainly, to catch some bait in the flooded marsh.  After about an hour, we had managed to catch three pinfish and headed off to fish.  When we stopped and I dropped the anchor he said “This is Green Roof Delta.”  I must explain that his father and I fish up and down this area of the river quite a lot and when we find a place we like, my son in law likes to name the spots.  I was amazed that a four year old, who had only been here once before, remembered his geography so well.  At 10:30 he was already hungry so I handed him a snack from the bounty that my wonderful wife had packed and, right on cue, as soon as we both had mouthfuls of Doritos, one of the poles bent over and the drag on the reel started singing!

I quickly grabbed the rod out of the holder and handed it to him.  With only minimal help from me he proceeded to crank in a nice trout!  We repeated this dance twice more and then had to go look for more bait, this time being much more successful, catching lots of shrimp and mullet.

At the end of our trip he had caught eight fish including three stingrays which he doesn’t like to catch.  Every time he had a fish on he would chant “No dumb stingray! No dumb stingray!”   One of the redfish was the biggest fish he has caught in his young life, a twenty-one incher!  Oh yeah, he made sure to tell his Mum-Mum and mother that he “caught eight fish and Grampy only caught shrimp and minnows.”

As much fun as it was watching him catch fish and seeing how excited he was about it, what really touched my heart were the stories he made up about the fish.  How maybe we weren’t catching any “because they were going to their hideout.”  Or maybe the one we caught was brother to another one we caught and “he told him where our bait was.”

All in all, it was the best seven hours I have spent fishing since I was a youngster and fished with my Grandfather.  I hope my grandson remembers it for a long time.  I know I will!

-Gary Perdue