I took "Minnow" out for the first time in my jet last Sunday, and boy was it awesome. On the way to the car after church I asked her if she’d like to go to the “Big River”, and she got really excited and said, “Do you think we can catch some walleye?” I knew I better set expectations so I told her that we would try real hard, but I know we’ll catch something.

Before I opened my big mouth, I should have probably checked the weather. As we pulled out of the parking lot it started to look REAL cloudy and even started raining a bit. I started telling her that we may not be able to go, and she replied “But I have a rain jacket and boots Daddy, and I love playing in the rain.” Now how in the world can a Father say no to that? So I gave theDuder a call and he decided to come along. By the time I got everything all settled and all Minnow’s toys/trinkets/books/raingear/snacks/etc in the boat it was almost 4PM. So off we went.

At first I wasn’t sure how she was going to handle the boat and the motor, as she’s not a big fan of loud noises. But she didn’t skip a beat. As we motored up river she wanted to stop and fish right away, but we pushed forward. Once we got up to our spot…it was on and it didn’t take her long to hook up for the first time…..and it was a smallmouth! I decided to try something new this time and I let her use my 4ft Ultralight (trout) rod spooled up with 10/2 powerpro….what a blast to watch her reel those fish in on that thing. But she held on tight and fought them all the way in.

All in all she probably landed 10 fish on her own, and probably a dozen of mine as well. She caught (on her own) 3 real nice catfish, and a bunch of smallmouth. We thought one of them was a walleye for a bit, but we were disappointed when it ended up having whiskers.

While she was taking "breaks" Minnow decided she wanted to be in charge of taking pictures, while she mastered the fishing rod in record time I'm still teaching her how to point the camera AT the subject. Oh well, you can't win them all.

Oh yeah, speaking of winning...I doubt I'll be winning any father of the year awards based on the looks I got from people when I brought minnow into McDonald's at 9PM on Sunday night. I promised her that I would buy her McDonalds and Ice Cream if she listened well on the boat....and Daddy never renigs on a promise. Mommy wasn't too happy about the whole thing....but Minnow was. :D

Another great day on the river, and now Minnow has her first smallmouth.
Muskalungeeeee!
-Mike '