Fall is in the air, and I love it. I love football, the cooler weather, the fall colors and spending time with my family. I also love winding down and not obsessing over the next tournament on the Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series schedule. Right now, I don’t have a care in the world. I can’t even tell you what day it is.
I’m still fishing, but now it’s fun and stress free. The outings are especially enjoyable because my 9-year-old son Dustin has really taken a liking to fishing. I get to teach him how to fish and watch him learn and enjoy it just as I did when I was a kid.
We’ve been going every week to the Snake River here in Idaho. The fishing for smallmouth there is good and easy. They’re always biting, which makes it a perfect place to learn how to fish for bass. Learning to fish is frustrating when you don’t get many bites.
Along with many other things, I’m teaching Dustin what to look for and where to cast. The Snake River is full of rock and grass. The smallmouth never set up in the grass because the strands are 4 to 5 feet long and wave in the current like a horse’s tail. That movement makes it hard for the bass to focus on the baitfish.
As we drift downriver, I instruct Dustin to cast a tube or a drop shot with a Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm to every little rockpile, rocky point, sand patch and current break. The bass always hang on places like that. Dustin is already beginning to spot these places on his own. When he makes a good cast, he gets a bite almost every time.
Dustin is also tuning in to sensing the bite, which is more challenging in the Snake River because the current’s flow bounces the baits over a bumpy bottom. It’s challenging for a beginner to distinguish a bite from the bottom.
I’ve talked with other pros who are teaching their kids to fish. If these youngsters ever wish to pursue a career as a tournament angler, they should have a significant head start.
I’m having a good time doing other things with my wife and kids, too, like going to a pumpkin patch. My wife and I also attend a lot of ball games and ball practices. Dustin is on a traveling baseball team, and my 11-year-old daughter Brook is on a traveling softball team.
Dustin plays shortstop and third base, and he’s starting to pitch. Brook is a catcher. She played her first softball game when she was 7 years old and got hit by pitches her first two times at bat. She became so afraid of the ball she would jump out of the batter’s box.
I credit the coach for helping her get over that. He had her play catcher so she could watch the ball coming at her on every pitch. That did the trick. Over the past three years, Brook has been the team’s batting champ. Her batting average is typically in the .400s and .500s. She loves softball now.
