My three year old has an obsession with fish, like her Dad. She will sit and watch a whole River Monsters episode, constantly talking about fish. She is always telling me “I want to go fishing Dad.” I decided to take her up to my secret hole which is really a large pond/small lake where there is a nice bank where she could sit and fish and not fall in the water, etc…. I normally use this spot for LMB as there is quite a few of them and they aren’t pressured, rare in this area, so the fishing is fast and fun using a popper.

I had a feeling that she was going to catch a fish, just because of the circumstances. I rigged up a pole and casted out. Gave her the pole and had her reel in. Immediately she had a hook up. Her eyes light up. My older daughter (14) helped the 3 year old set the hook and let the three year old reel in.

For some reason the pan fish in this lake put up a pretty good fight swimming back and forth trying to dodge under logs etc… So for her this was a river monster. She reeled him in and at the last moment he jumped out of the water revealing himself to be a Blue Gill.

I grabbed the line pulled the fish up and held him out for her to see. She was ecstatic. We threw him back in and her fishing expedition was done. I cast out three more times and hooked onto a dink LMB around 8” or so. We walked back home, my only regret is that I didn’t have the fore thought to bring a camera for this event, her smile would have told you all you needed to know.

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