Fishing with Children

I have a photograph of my eldest daughter when she was 9, standing on the dock in Cowichan Bay, holding, with both hands, a 22 pound spring salmon that is two thirds of her height,  that she caught while trolling in the bay. In the late fall, if rain was still slight, the rivers were low and the big fish could not go up them to spawn till the rains came. As a result the big fish accumulated in the bay and fishing was spectacular. River mouth fishing is no longer allowed there for very good reasons. I have a photograph of my youngest daughter when she was 9,  taken near the end of day, at the end of the fishing season in Lake of the Woods, when we were due to go back to the coast. She rowed out to the pickerel hole by her self for the last time. She came rowing back to the cottage near dark, in jubilation, having jigged with minnows for 2 hours, carrying a 6 pound pickerel, the largest of that season. I have a photograph of my son when he was 11, whose line we thought hit bottom around Fiddle Reef off Lotus City waters, and I scolded him for not watching the line carefully enough to avoid snagging. As we dragged and hauled and backed up the boat to pull at different angles to relieve the snag, we pulled in a dead weight, 44 pound halibut. The halibut suddenly became alive on the bottom of the boat once gaffed and landed and it took a time and effort to subdue since we didn't carry a 22. When I went fishing with my 10 year old grandson by the Can Buoy at Batt Rock, a submerged mount in Ganges harbour, we illegally tied up to the Can Buoy to still fish, and he caught an 18 pound silver green ling cod. Unfortuately the ling cod were out of season and he had to throw it back. He wrote of his sorrow. They are now 52, 49, 54 and 24, but those are fish to remember and there is an imprint on a software gyrus of each, labelled Desire, that portends danger for some fish, some time!