Fishing with kids can be a nightmare unless you tailor your activities to their attention spans. Here are some great ideas for trips to make with your youngsters.
In his two books, The Helldivers Rodeo and The Hellpig Hunt, Louisiana Sportsman contributor Humberto Fontova makes a convincing case that the drive to harvest living creatures is still alive on some level in every human. But in many people, Fontova would agree, that drive is buried beneath blankets of guilt, sheets of “compassion” and layers of “empathy” — all the very fruit of convenience.
Pamela Anderson, or Pamela Lee, or Pamela Anderson Lee, or whatever her name is this month, can today cuddle with a bunny, scratch the brow of a heifer and throw bread to ducks in a park because she no longer needs those creatures for sustenance. She can run down to the corner store and buy all the tofu, granola and carb-conscious carob bean gum she wants.
But drop Ms. Anderson in the middle of the woods for a week with nothing but a shotgun and a box of shells, and watch how quickly she transforms from Pamela “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” Anderson to Pamela “Squirrel — the other white meat” Anderson.
Like other PETA members, Pamela’s been conditioned by her convenience to think of animals as cute and cuddly rather than moist and tasty. This is a growing trend in America, as more and more people succumb to the lures of sloth and luxury, and the guilt that is their handmaiden. A roast is something that comes from Winn-Dixie, but — egads! — it’s horribly cruel and barbaric to harvest one’s own.
Fortunately, most kids simply haven’t had enough time in our culture to fill their backpacks with the cannonballs of guilt shot their way by parents, teachers, preachers and politicians. In kids, the basal drive to harvest wild animals is still a raging fire not yet dampened by the comforts of this world.
Don’t believe it? Take a kid fishing or hunting, and just sit back and watch. The youngsters have no thought for the speckled trout that’s flapping its tail furiously in the ice chest gasping for another taste of oxygen, they have no concern for the squirrel that’s twisting itself in knots from the agony of a well-placed cascade of No. 6 shot, they have no care for the doe that just expired in full view of her nuzzling fawn.
They want two things: 1) to catch or kill a wild creature, and 2) to eat it.
Your average adult male can have a perfectly wonderful time casting to brush on a lake bank, reeling in bass and then releasing them to fight another day, but to a kid, that final action nullifies the rest of the chain of events. What’s the point of working hard to land that fish if you’re not going to sink your choppers into its warm flesh at some later moment?
That fish, to a kid, is fun to fight, but only because it’s a classic battle between captivity and freedom. At the heart of man, as Leopold said, is the desire to reduce wild things to possession, and there’s`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁ`®VÁesh, but kids are seldom so magnanimous. They want to fight it, land it and eat it.
We anglers sometimes forget that. After reading billboards, viewing magazine ads and hearing public service announcements, we start to feel negligent, and so we decide to take our kids fishing. But what do we do? We take them to do the stuff that we like to do — shallow-water redfishing, casting topwater baits for trophy trout or catch-and-release bass fishing.
The problem is that all of these activities require copious amounts of skill and dexterity. Sure it would be great to see your kid’s face as an 8-pound red slams his gold spoon. But is that really likely to happen? Is your kid going to still even be casting that spoon after one of the big lulls in the action that are impossible to avoid in shallow-water fishing?
Hardly.
The fun for you may be in the pursuit, but for them, it’s inextricably imbedded in the harvest.
My kids are no different. After a lifetime spent in my house, watching cold, stiff speckled trout being filleted on the kitchen counter, seeing deer hind quarters being stripped of bone and hooves and viewing duck entrails being ripped from body cavities, my kids are so far from Pamela Anderson on the compassion spectrum that FedEx probably couldn’t even get there overnight.
But as jaded as they are, they still love the fight, the harvest and, of course, the resultant meal.
So last month, after purchasing a new boat, I resisted the urge to take them to Venice for some trophy trout fishing or Cocodrie for shallow-water redfishing. In fact, I didn’t even take them fishing at all, but opted for a safer outlet, one that would virtually guarantee success — crabbing.
The popularity of this sport has waned in recent years as anglers have purchased stronger, faster, more seaworthy boats to take them to the coastal bays for spawning trout in the summertime. But crabbing is no less fun today than it was in the ’60s and ’70s when I, like many youths at the time, used to run nets on humid Saturday mornings with my grandfather.
Our day started early with the sun peeking its nose like a turtle over the edge of the horizon. The light breeze was out of the southwest, which gave us an unfettered run down the Violet Canal and into the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet near its intersection with Lake Borgne. These are the same waters I crabbed as a youth, though then the channel was much narrower.
Tori, my 14-year-old daughter, manned the wheel as we idled down the southwestern shore of the Ship Channel. Meanwhile, 12-year-old Taylor placed a chicken neck in each net, and I tied it tight with a half-hitch. Joel, 5, did his best to encourage his sister to floor the throttle.
After each net was readied, it went over the side, and Taylor followed with a toss of its cork. Within minutes, all 14 nets were set, and for Joel’s sake, I gunned the boat for a quick spin down the ripply channel.
But after only a couple minutes, I could see in my mind the fat-covered chicken necks being clawed and devoured by the ravenous crabs, so we returned to the first net we threw out, and began our “run.”
With the boat moving forward at idle speed and Taylor leaning over the starboard gunwale, I eased up to the cork until it was almost in reach and then pulled the throttle to neutral.
Taylor yanked up the cork, and hauled in the string as fast as her hands could work. Everyone on board stared down at the water straining to gain the first glimpse of the net as soon as it came into view. Even Joel took a break from his chant of the morning — “Go fast, Dad” — to see what the net would carry.
To our unanimous delight, the net held two crabs, one a large female that was on the edge trying to escape, the other a slightly smaller male that was still clawing at the chicken.
I cheered, Joel clapped and Taylor dumped the first crabs of the day into the open ice chest.
She threw the net back out like a Frisbee, and I pointed the bow toward the next cork, only 30 yards away.
“When are we going to boil them?” Joel asked as he chased the big female around the ice chest with a set of tongs.
The fight had been won, but the deal hadn’t been consummated with consumption.
“If we catch enough, we’ll cook them when we get home,” I assured him.
Still, a look of disappointment flashed across his face, obvious concern that we might not cook these two that we’d already captured.
Fortunately, his fears were for naught. Net No. 2 held three crabs, and future runs were similarly productive. We ended the day with 75 crabs, most of which were medium or bigger.
My kids were delighted, especially as we sat around the table that evening for the feast, and I basked in the afterglow for days.
Hopedale Hotspots
Capt. Ben Leto has taken a number of kids fishing during his career as a full-time Hopedale guide, so he’s learned the tricks that keep a darling son from turning into the son of Satan.
“The name of the game is action,” he said. “Kids need a lot of action so they don’t get bored, and to help them keep their concentration on fishing.”
To achieve that end, Leto eschews targeting the glamour species of trout and redfish, opting instead for the so-called “trash fish.”
“I’ve got one spot in particular that always holds black drum,” he said. “Other spots I like to fish with kids, you never know what you’re going to catch — sheepshead, white trout, drum, channel mullet.”
Such spots are ideal for kids because the variety of the haul keeps their interest piqued. The constant action also helps the kids to learn what the bite of a fish feels like, and what to do when they detect a strike.
Leto said a young man named Taylor Jones, 11, has been fishing with him since he was 6 years old. In the early days, he couldn’t handle a rod well, so Leto would take him to his mixed-bag holes.
Now, Taylor has developed into a competent and successful angler, and Leto can take him to target the tougher-to-catch species. In fact, last month, while fishing the Rummel Rodeo, Taylor boated the 1st and 2nd place redfish in the kids division and the 2nd place redfish in the adult division while fishing with Leto.
“You ought to see that kid fish now,” Leto said. “He’s really figured it out. He knows how to stay in contact with the bait.”
Leto said the patience of parents is vital for a kid to learn how to fish.
“Whenever I’m taking a kid out, I’ll have to read his dad,” Leto said. “Dad might not be happy fishing for sheepshead. He might want to just go after trout, so we’ll have to do what Dad wants.”
Leto’s mixed-bag spots are typically deep holes in bayous and passes where currents run swift.
“You want a spot that’s funneling a lot of bait through,” he said. “It can be deep and have a lot of current, but if that bait isn’t moving through, you’re not going to do as good.”
Some of Leto’s favorites are Grand Pass, St. Helena Pass and Pass Fernandez.
He uses his depthfinder to locate the deep water, and then anchors upcurrent of the hole.
“Sometimes the fish are in the hole; other times, they’re on the slope,” he said. “I usually have to move two or three times before I get over them.”
He fishes the holes and slopes with Carolina rigs, consisting of 1/2- to 3/4-ounce egg sinkers and 1/0 hooks.
The small hooks allow the taking of bull croakers and channel mullet, but don’t limit the number of black drum and bull reds that are caught, in Leto’s opinion.
“I use a 1/0 for just about everything,” he said. “I don’t think anything bigger than that helps you.”
He said he almost always uses a 3/4-ounce weight or heavier for the kids to help them make and maintain contact with the bottom.
Although he’s targeting what some other anglers consider trash fish with this technique, Leto said he frequently catches numbers — sometimes even limits — of trout in the 14- to 20-inch range.
“People wouldn’t believe how many trout you can catch on dead shrimp,” he said.
Rocks of (All) Ages
Like an Old-West cowboy, Capt. Ron Price always has an ace up his sleeve whenever he takes kids fishing out of his home port of Venice.
From now through November and often into December, there’s no better spot on the planet to catch numbers and a variety of fish than the Southwest Pass rocks, the veteran guide said.
“For someone who doesn’t fish that much, it’s a guaranteed trip of a lifetime,” he said.
Price’s techniques are about as simple as fishing in a stocked swimming pool.
After making the 45-minute run to the tip of the Southwest Pass jetties, he anchors in any of several spots.
If the tip of the east jetty is available, he’ll anchor there in 8 to 10 feet of water. If not, he’ll look for a spot farther up that jetty on the outside.
“On the east jetty, you need to anchor fairly close to the jetty because (the water) drops off so fast,” he said.
If nothing’s available there, he’ll go to the outside of the west jetty and anchor there or adjacent to any of the wing dams on the west side.
“You want to anchor up close to those wing dams. They get just chock-full of fish,” he said.
After he’s gotten his anchor set, he’ll have his clients drop 1/2-ounce jigheads baited with dead shrimp all the way to the bottom.
It almost never takes more than a minute or two before all rods are bent.
“We catch a whole lot of reds and black drum doing that,” he said. “But we also catch croakers, flounder, gafftops, sharks — you name it.”
Price agrees with Leto that the variety of the fish caught is almost as important to kids as the consistent action.
“They like to get a bait down just to see what they’re going to reel in next,” he said.
The action at Southwest Pass is best when the river is 5 feet or lower at New Orleans’ Carrollton gauge. It peaks in late September and October, Price said.
“The water’s so pretty at that time of year,” he said.
One of the best things about the rocks is that they can be fished when many other places are blown out, Price said.
“You’d be surprised how calm it is at the rocks on a north wind, like the day after a front passes,” he said. “That’s really the ideal wind down there, as long as it’s not too extreme.”
The kids’ll catch fish until they’re begging for mercy, but they won’t show any to that night’s dinner.
Sorry Mrs. Tommy Lee.
