Bassin'

I received an email from my wife the other day that she had forwarded on from one of our friends:

"J wanted me to ask you all about fishing. G and I did not grow up fishing and have no idea what to do. J has been a couple times with some of his friends and their families. He then bought a fishing rod at Sports Authority with a gift certificate he had and he walks down to our ponds in and fishes (never catches anything of course). He would like to do more, but we do not even know how to help him......so I was wondering if sometime Brian could take J out and show them the ropes? Does he need a license?"

Would I like to take a kid fishing?

Hmm...

Let me think...

Hell yeah!

I met up with J last Thursday, and we went out to one of the several ponds in his gated community. The fish were there--I could see bluegill right at the shore, and little rings throughout the pond that proved that fish were feeding.

He wanted to try artificials, so we tied on Yo-zuri's and commenced casting. After about 15 mintues, I was ready to switch over to live bait, but he was having so much fun casting, I let him go a bit longer.

Eventually, he got bored and I switched the lures out for size 10 long-shank hooks, a light weight and a bobber. The bait of choice was earthworms, dutifully dug from my very own garden.

Side note: You can't go a mile without finding a bait shop in St. Petersburg, but don't count on finding worms there. You can find pinfish, shrimp, squid and every other type of frozen or fresh bait for SALTwater fishing, but not a cricket or meal worm or any other type of FRESHwater bait. I seriously can't think of a single place that sells worms around here.

On J's first cast, my fishing buddy put his bait right in the middle of a bunch of reeds. I told him that he had better hand over the pole so that I could extract the tackle without a hang-up, and he dutifully obliged. Right at that moment, his bobber went under and a I lifted out a 7 or 8 inch bass.

"Did I catch it?! Does that count?" he asked.
"Hell yes, it does!"

He wouldn't touch the fish, nor would he hold the line for a snapshot, so I lipped the bass and shot it with him in the background:

You can see how happy he was. I was pretty happy too.

He caught a couple more fish--both bluegill--before we ran out of worms and had to head back.

My total: 0.

I've had fun in the past helping Reilly catch fish, and it was cool today to help this young guy catch his first bass and bluegill. He's already called asking when I can take him again. If I can just find a worm supplier, he'll be able to go whenever he wants.

Worms, where are you?