Mike Roux: The joys of fishing with a kid

Summertime means different things to different people. It means it's time to take my grandkids fishing. Not much calms my spirit and repairs my anxieties like watching my grandkids become thoroughly engrossed with catching fish.

Ayden is 12 and has been fishing with Grandpa Mike for nine years. He has caught more bass and bluegill than I can count and he loves to keep score.

Ayden likes to turn everything into a contest. He was an all-star shortstop and pitcher on his Little League team this year and is a Wii expert.

He also insists on doing everything for himself when fishing. That goes for everything from baiting the hook to releasing his fish. Things take him a bit more time than if he would let me help. But he gets it done.

Our other grandson is Connor. We call him C.J. He is 4, and for him a couple of hours of catching bluegill is just as good as me catching marlin in the ocean. His joy and sense of accomplishment when he lands a fish is unbelievable.

Fishing actually helps a kid's self-esteem, among many other positive things.

My littlest fishin' buddy is too young to have picked up the skill of the live worm and hook baiting procedure. Grandpa Mike is still The Guide and is expected to do everything except cast and catch. C.J. is getting pretty good at those two skills.

So last week all four grandkids were here for the weekend. Ayden has a good friend next door named Grant. They were all tangled-up in an X-Box baseball game so I decided to take C.J. out for an hour of drowning worms. This was an unplanned trip so my little partner was ecstatic when he saw me loading his fishing gear into the truck. He ran through the house yelling, "Grandma Nancy, I'm goin' fishin'!" It made me smile big.

Once at the dock, nobody else was fishing so it did not take long for the bluegill to light up his bobber. "I got one Grandpa," was what he said every time he set the hook. I say set the hook but that is an exaggeration. When the bobber goes down he knows to start winding. If the hook happens to be in a fish's mouth he gets it. Otherwise it quickly becomes a "do over".

We had been there about 20 minutes when his attention began to wane. "You catch one now Grandpa," he said. So I caught a couple. He then stepped back up and took the rod.

"How many is that?" he asked as he kicked his 10th bluegill back in. I told him and he said, "That's enough. Let's go home."

We got home and I switched gear and switched kids. Ayden, Grant and I headed back to the same dock. It was about an hour before sunset. A young mother and her son were fishing; they had seen C.J. catch all his fish from across the lake. They had caught nothing, so Ayden and Grant pitched in and helped the other boy catch a few.

As I said, Ayden knows his way around fishing. While helping the other boy and Grant, he managed to catch six or eight of his own. It was dark before I could convince the boys we needed to get Grant home before his dad came looking for us.

Taking my boys fishing is something I have done for decades. Now taking their boys fishing is a true joy to my heart. Do yourself a favor. Take a kid fishing ... soon.