After a very untimely rain and windstorm ruined our initial plans for an outing, I was finally able to take youngsters Hudson and Fletcher out on Shortt’s Lake for a morning session chasing smallmouth and pickerel. Weather still had an impact on our day, although that must have only been an issue for me because I never heard a single complaint from either of the boys through the entire misty damp morning. These boys just love everything fishing, and nothing was getting in the way of their thirst for information and for casting. 

We tried to start our morning in an area looking for a topwater bite, and we followed up with some bottom fishing using drop shots and ned rigs. The smallies were just not co-operating early, so we transitioned to crank baits to keep everyone’s attention. I can’t blame the boys for preferring casting opportunities rather than dropping bottom baits in 20 feet of water, especially when action is slow. 

My previous couple outings on Shortt’s Lake I have found a good crank bait bite on the edges of weedlines, so we took advantage of trolling motor to troll Rapalas between spots this morning. And Fletcher had the hot hand bringing in a big healthy smallmouth that put on quite a show bringing it into the boat. Full credit to Fletcher, he had the calm, cool demeanour of a professional bringing that fish in and helping guide it into the net. And the confidence to take hold of that fish for an epic hero shot that he’ll likely be showing all his friends for years to come. 

The next couple hours were spent chasing shallow fish. We got Hudson on a little smallie, and Fletcher on a little pickerel. Let’s discuss Hudson though, who is one heck of an angler at just 8 years old. This young man jumped on the boat in the morning and was immediately impressing me with his casting ability and his confidence with a fishing rod in his hands. We were not able to put him on big fish today, but it was simply a case of bad luck and certainly not for lack of skill. Prior to today I don’t think Hudson had ever seen a senko, but after watching him for the morning I put a senko in his hands and put him on a dock that I had a lot of confidence in. After only a small amount of instruction on working a senko (and no instructions past that), Hudson dropped the bait right beside the dock, felt the bite, and laid into an absolutely perfect solid hooks into a healthy sized fish. This fish spit the bait, it turns out the senko had folded over the hook point on the bite and that prevented the hook from getting into the fish. A follow up pitch to the dock and Hudson got another hit, this time his fantastic hook set was rewarded with a senko stripped from the hook as a result of a short bite. It took me years to develop any confidence and any sort of ability fishing a senko, Hudson picked it up in about 3 minutes. 

Not impressed by an 8 year old fishing a senko like a professional? How about an 8 year old picking up a bait caster and needing about 6 minutes to master that too? Sure I had to help pick out a birds nest, but that was just one time. I regularly have more birds nests now and I’ve been using baitcasters for 25 years. Apologies to Hudson’s parents for the long Christmas list he’s going to have after this outing. 

In addition to the fishing today we inspected every single hatch in the boat, we went through every single tackle box at least once, and we inspected every single bag of soft plastics. We discussed frogs, flukes, rage bugs, chatter baits, micro-fishing, and the some of the super cool boats and docks we passed by around the lake.  I hope the boys had half as much fun as I did today. 

The best sign of a good day of fishing is not the numbers of fish caught, it’s the number of times you check the time, and the level of motivation to keep doing “one more cast”. And at the end of our day today the boys could have “one more cast” their way to dark, and I likely wouldn’t have stopped them. Hudson and Fletcher were fantastic co-anglers today, and I hope our little outing continues to feed their desire to keep fishing and keep learning.