Outdoors Column | Les Winkeler: A nearly impossible task - The Southern
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to entertain two youngsters, a seven-year-old girl and a three-year-old boy, for 12 days.
If you heard the Mission Impossible theme as you read that, you’ve been in my shoes.
In normal times, the task would have been easier. However, due to coronavirus concerns, we ruled out playgrounds and other activities where the grandkids would have been exposed to anyone outside our immediate family.
We did a lot of play activities at home. We took daily walks. We introduced our granddaughter to rummy and Uno. We watched a lot of cartoons on Netflix.
However, that’s not enough to keep a pair of active, bright, curious children busy for 12 days.
Grandpa’s solution? A fishing trip of course.
With grandma’s assistance, that morphed into a fishing trip, wiener roast and a hike. Amazingly, the day came off without a hitch … although not without a few lighthearted moments.
Given the age of the kids, their physical abilities and relatively short attention spans, simplicity was the order of the day.
Knowing that my role was going to be untangling lines and baiting hooks, I bought a box of meal worms. Meal worms are the perfect bait for a kids’ fishing trip. You can thread them on a hook in a matter of seconds. They’re clean and you can keep the box in your pants pocket.
Kate, the seven-year-old, has a competitive nature. She is inquisitive and is well coordinated for her age. I figured a crappie pole, rigged with a bobber and a tiny hook would be perfect for her. She could dip the hook in the shallow areas off one of the fishing piers at Glen O. Jones Lake and catch bluegill, warmouth and pumpkinseeds to her heart's content.
Will, the three-year-old, certainly couldn’t handle the crappie pole. But, we had purchased him a tiny rod and reel set some time ago, the kind that used to feature Mickey Mouse but now has some superhero emblazoned on it.
And, we knew he could handle the rig.
We keep it in the house with a bobber on the line. He casts it across the living room and laughs uncontrollably as the cats chase the bobber across the floor. Besides, if the fish weren’t biting, casting and retrieving would keep him busy.
As luck would have it, the fish were incredibly cooperative.
I demonstrated the crappie rig for Kate and immediately a small bluegill pulled the float beneath the surface. I had barely returned that fish to the water when Kate caught the first of about 20 of her own.
She kept me so busy unhooking and baiting that I barely had time to get Will’s rig wet.
However, it took just a couple minutes before a small fish was taking Will’s bobber out to see. He didn’t hesitate a moment when my wife told him to reel. A few cranks of the handle later and a small sunfish was flopping on the bank at Will’s feet.
He tossed his hands into the air as if he had just scored the winning Super Bowl touchdown. However, that’s where the scenario fell apart.
My wife grabbed the fish and carried it to Will, asking it he’d like to touch it. Suffice it to say that wasn’t his idea of a good time.
He bolted from his tiny chair, ran off the pier screaming, “I’m very, very afraid.”
That marked the end of Will’s fishing adventure. He ran to the nearby picnic table where we had stashed our cooler.
When grandma reached his side Will informed her that he wanted to help make lunch.
That wasn’t a bad idea either.
LES WINKELER is the outdoors writer for The Southern Illinoisan. Contact him at les@winkelerswingsandwildlife.com, on Twitter @LesWinkeler.
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2020-08-15 20:03:13Z
https://thesouthern.com/sports/outdoors/outdoors-column-les-winkeler-a-nearly-impossible-task/article_15da7eda-a471-5fa1-964d-42845f4c0289.html
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