On Sunday I took my son, age 4, and one of my nephews, age 11, to one of
our local lakes for my son's first time fishing. We got to the lake
about 11 am and after getting their rods rigged up (with bait gear) we
headed down to the little fishing dock at the lake. My nephew caught the
first fish, a yellow perch, right away so right off the bat they're
having fun. About an hour and a half later, I headed up to our car to
put on my sunglasses and my nephew called up to my that Jacob (my son)
had on a fish. I turned around in time to see it jump so went running
back down the dock to help out. When I got there my nephew was reeling
in Jacob's fish so I told him to let Jacob have the rod. Another
fisherlady there had told me that it was a nice one, I helped out by
just making sure that Jacob kept his rod tip up and let him do all of
the reeling. When the fish got closer to the surface and rolled I could
see that it really was a nice one. Well not wanting to risk losing it by
lifting up and over the dock railing, I played it around the end of the
dock and let it have some line so that I could get to the shore and land
it there. We finally landed it and measured it at just over 16"!
Needless to say that I was very proud of my son for getting a fish that
size for his first trout and the only one that was caught between the 2
of them that day. They did catch a couple of more yellow perch though.
Saturday was my birthday and my wife had planned dinner for the whole
family, parents and father-in-law, for Sunday evening, but when we got
home, Jacob told her that he wanted the fish for dinner. Now I've just
got to take the 2 of them fishing more often. The look on Jacob's face
when he saw that fish was well worth the trip.

Darin