Encourage a 4 year old

[Paul Arden]

One of my favourite pictures...

[Lasse Karlsson]

Love it!

[Paul Arden]

Some of my earliest memories are fishing around Busby, Glasgow with a net and a jam jar. I also remember losing what probably was a big salmon and various rod tips )))

Anyway I’ve decided to go back 40 years later and fly fish the stream. I’ll head up next month after Hungary. I may take a hand net just to make the connection complete.

How cool is that? I just love the idea of it and it will make for a great FP!!!!

Cheers, Paul

[bartdezwaan]

Cool to hear all the stories about the kids fishing.
I really hope I can take mine all over the world when they are older. Would be nice if they appreciatie nature instead of only playing video games.

@Vince Thanks for the tip about Polperro.
We visited it when we switched cottages last friday.

[Boisker]

I think one of my funniest memories was from when I was about 11 yrs old. We’d gone to France on holiday, first time... and I hadn’t taken any fishing tackle, the last time I made that mistake!
The locals fishing in the harbour and local canal seemed to all use a pole, not a fancy modern one that goes out 10m, but a telescopic one that went to perhaps 16-18’... one eye on the end to have a fixed length of line attached. They were pretty damn cheap and awful.
Sat on the quay side swinging this bloody awful pole about, I swung the line behind me and it didn’t come back.. instead I had a really old French fisherman jumping about having snagged the arse of his trousers shout “big fish”in very dodgy English... on the plus side he gave me and my Dad a quick tour of his little fishing boat plus a little stubby French beer... which was very cool aged 11

[jarmo]

One of my favourite pictures...

That is a most heart-warming sight indeed. Any fishing club could use that on their wall.

I found this thread when looking for advice on how to teach a small kid. One of my students is 8 years old, and while he has definitely made progress during the couple of sessions we have had, I just think the 6wt his father had bought him is a bit too much. Next time I will take my 6'6" 3wt and let him try that. Yesterday I asked the father whether this would be ok. It could be kinda rude to suggest that recently purchased gear might be a problem.

(His older brother, 14, has some real talent.)

[Paul Arden]

There was a video by the Late Donald Downs called “Fly casting is kid’s stuff”. I have no idea if you can find a copy.

One technique used when teaching a child who obviously has a problem with the rod being too long and/or the line too heavy, is to have them clamp the rod butt close to the forearm with the line hand. It’s far from perfect and it’s only really a bandaid solution but does get results.

Incidentally I think shortening the rod length would be better than reducing line weight. Particularly for fishing where the line weight should be determined broadly by fly size.

Cheers, Paul

[jarmo]

Incidentally I think shortening the rod length would be better than reducing line weight. Particularly for fishing where the line weight should be determined broadly by fly size.

Makes sense. Leverage seems to be the issue. After 10 minutes, I feel the kid (also physically small) will tip over when he tilts the rod.

On that 3wt I have a 4wt DT, so on small streams the kid should be fine with something like that. Fly wise, that is.

I have never owned a "heavier" short rod.

[Paul Arden]

That sounds like a good combination to me. It's possible that after learning the technique with the shorter rod that he'll be able to fish the longer one. Otherwise he'll just have to grow into it!

I loaned out a 7ft 4WT rod to a student/father over ten years ago. I'm still waiting for its return

Cheers, Paul