This morning I fished with Ed Tydings of Pflugerville, Texas, and his five year old son, Liam. As they did for Eddie, Liam’s older brother, the Tydings treated Liam to his first fishing trip to celebrate his fifth birthday.
Ed Tydings and 5-year-old Liam Tydings with the very first fish of Liam’s fishing career.
We met at 7:00 AM and by 7:20 AM already had two fish in the boat. I was a bit concerned about the fishing today due to the arrival of a weak cold front yesterday afternoon, which left northerly winds, clear skies, and high pressure in its wake. Although we saw next to no top water action today, the action on suspended white bass held up very well. We caught an even dozen white bass using three-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons in our first hour and 15 minutes of fishing, along with one channel catfish.
I’ve learned a lot in my years spent fishing with literally hundreds of kids. A few of those thing are 1) kids’ attention spans are short, 2) novelty wears off quickly, and 3) making intentional transitions to new techniques, species, and/or locations extends kids’ interest.
That said, by around 8:15 AM or so the novelty of the downrigging technique was wearing off for Liam, despite the excellent results. Dad and I agreed that a change of scenery and a change of tactics were appropriate. Thanks to the cold front conditions and falling water, plus a strong crop of hydrilla growing in the shallows, my ability to catch sunfish easily enough for small children to stay interested very long has slowly diminished over the summer, but, we gave it a try anyway using long poles with fixed lines and slip bobbers. We fished in the “salad” of hydrilla in the back of a cove and picked up one bluegill sunfish and one green sunfish in fairly short order.
Liam then began asking questions about the “big net” (my landing net) on the boat. Ed and I told him that the big net was used to land big fish. So naturally, Liam asked if we could catch big fish so we could use the net. This allowed us to return to the white bass we had left behind still biting earlier in the morning and continue to catch them on the downriggers for the sake of introducing Liam to the finer points of netting big fish. We wound up catching an additional 13 white bass, with six of them coming on the downriggers and the remainder coming on slabs worked vertically after finding a heavy concentration of bottom oriented white bass at a break line in about 28 feet of water.
As the novelty of this third transition begin to wear off, as the sun began to beat down on us, and as the winds went slack, Liam’s interest level dropped sharply, and Ed and I knew that it was to a good time to end the trip so as to keep the memory of this trip a good one for Liam. A lot of well-intentioned parents and grandparents make a big mistake at this point, insisting that kids stay out longer for the full duration of the trip, perhaps thinking that builds patience or character. Actually, what it does is leaves a bad taste in kids’ mouths and is the last (negative) memory of what, up to that point, was a positive experience. So, Ed made a good call here putting his boy first. I have no doubt that Liam’s interest in the pursuit of fish has been kindled and that he’ll continue to look forward to outings with his dad and big brother.
Our catch of 28 fish today consisted of 25 white bass, 1 channel catfish, and 2 sunfish. For landing the first fish of his life, Liam will receive a Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. “First Fish Award”.
TALLY = 28 FISH
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TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:
Start Time: 7:00am
End Time: 10:38am
Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 74F
Water Surface Temp: 85.7F
Wind Speed & Direction: NW0-4
Sky Conditions: Fair with 20% high, thin, white cloud cover.
Other: GT=15
AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:
**Area 912 to 1133 to 1417 gave up suspended white bass at 27-31 feet early and late this morning
**Area 1416 held a few sunfish
Bob Maindelle
Owner, Holding the Line Guide Service
254.368.7411 (call or text)
Salado, TX