We hit the beach Tuesday to get some fresh fish. Once again, the gulf produced.
The set up is simple. PVC pipes hold the rods, pyramid weights keep the bait down, and a circle hook with fresh dead shrimp as bait.
The fish were really biting. I was going to have four rods out, but it became apparent I could only work two at a time. I gave Keegan his rod and he was soon shouting “Fish On!”
As I was getting Keegan rebaited and casted out, Oliver gets hooked up.
I repeated the process ad nausea and we had a couple doubles.
The little guy just played in the sand and collected a pile of shells. Oh, and a ball.
Bringing the dog is always fun, but you better have a plan for the sand she’s going to bring home with you.
We came home with some nice eating size whiting and so the cleaning lessons began.
We eat these guys grilled whole so all that is needed is a good scaling and gutting. Oliver is plenty old enough to scale a fish and can gut with supervision. Keegan’s a champion caliber scaler as well.
Who took you fishing first and what did you catch? Do you have any tips for getting kids into fishing?
Love the pics! Looks like great father/sons bonding time 🙂
Indeed
My dad took us, and my uncle. We caught mostly bluegills and smallmouth. Then I caught the fishing bug and couldn’t get enough of it. On family trips, I’d pack my rod and tackle and sneak away to catch my bait (crickets and grasshoppers) and go fishing by myself 🙂
I too grew up catching bluegills. On the gulf, whiting and croaker are equivalent to bluegills. No great skill needed, abundant, and readily willing to scarf a shrimp.
When my parents divorced and were going thru the custody battle, my grandparents got temp. custody of us. I was five years old. My granddaddy loved fishing, so to get me out of my granny’s hair, he’d take me down a trail behind their old farmhouse to a fishing pond. I’d fish from the dock and catch a mess of bream. He’d fish from the shore and catch cats. When we got home we’d clean ’em together at the sink on the back porch. I never will forget those precious years spent with my grandparents. They loved life, the outdoors and sharing their love of those things with their grandchildren. Now, I’m sharing with my own children what I love… life, outdoors and spending time with them! Really enjoyed your photo essay…
I’m glad it brought you good memories.
Looks like you’ve got a good crew of anglers on your hands! I could stand for a little time in the surf about now. Thanks for sharing.
They are learning. The surf is a fun place to fish and you never know what’s going to be running.
A good day in the salt can be dangerous for kids. I spoiled my oldest by taking him on one of his first fishing trips to a friends dock where we were catching crabs on chicken necks, shrimp by the dozen in the cast net and hooking into redfish and speckled trout every other cast. Now he thinks all fishing trips should be that productive, and as we all know, they’re not.