Terry Madewell/Clarendon Citizen
The future of fishing is here and now
There’s only one first fish for anyone and it is a special time for that person. Sometimes, it’s just as special, if not more so, for those who witness the event. One of the coming of age qualifications for becoming an outdoorsman is caching that first fish. And then the key is wanting to catch more … a lot more.
For two-year-old Austin Carter, it was a great combination of both and he passed the coming of age criteria in superb fashion. Of course, he had a big audience and cheering section, but the young man adapted quickly.
There is a lot of natural ability in his bloodline that I have personally witnessed. His mother is Jenifer Carter, the daughter of my friend Mike Cox. Mike is one of the best all-around outdoorsmen I’ve ever met and he passed those genetics on to his daughter. Jenifer loves to fish for bream as much as anyone I’ve ever seen. She is also an accomplished deer hunter as well as enjoying just about everything regarding saltwater fishing, since she was raised along the South Carolina coast.
But Austin’s first fish and first stringer of fish was the focus of the day recently. Mike had it exactly right when he said it’s not the size of the fish that matters to a two-year-old boy, it’s the action that counts.
“Head count is much more important than body size of the fish, especially on the first trip,” Cox said. “That’s why bream fishing is the ideal situation for Austin to experience his first outdoor adventure.”
Bream fishing is certainly the fish most of us cut our fishing teeth on and it was a great way to get Austin involved in the sport. After a couple of missed bites because of late-hook sets, Austin finally got the feel of it and set the hook into a feisty bream.
Of course, Grandpa Mike was helping him, but only minimally. The effort to let Austin experience it as realistically as possible was the goal. At first, he didn’t know quite what to make of the pulling and tugging on the rod, but it did bring a big grin to his face. He knew it was a good thing. When he lifted the bream, a big ol’ purple male bream at that, over the gunnel of the boat, a big cheer from the crowd went up. Yes, he had a number of witnesses and backers. We should all be that lucky, I suppose.
But the adventure didn’t end there. Fishing from a pontoon boat, there was plenty of room for not only Austin, but several other friends and family members as well. We had about 200 crickets on board the boat when we began and when we returned a couple of hours later we were fresh out of crickets. Granted, not all of them were lost from a hook or to fish biting or being caught, although plenty of fish were caught.
Austin developed a real penchant for picking up the cricket and examining them. I’ve seen adults cower in fear and backup from a cage of crickets, but there was no fear in that young man. Then he discovered that the crickets could swim when tossed into the water.
From a cricket’s perspective, I guess it should be considered fair chase when released over the side of the boat to make a life or death swim for the shoreline. I suppose that’s especially true when the alternative is being placed on a hook, under a bobber and tossed into a melee of feeding bream.
Of course, not very many crickets made it all the way to the shoreline, but a few certainly did and that was all part of the fun of it.
With youngsters you also need diversions, not full time fishing. So we threw in frequent breaks for food as well as swimming time. But as the evening shadows began to fall, it was back to fishing. The bream action was again getting good and now another fishy critter was beginning to bite, the catfish.
Our son, Drew, led the catfish charge and that got Austin’s attention. While most of the catfish were in the smallish size, that was okay too. I doubt that Austin could handle a big 20-pound blue, but he did just fine with the ¾- to 2-pound channel catfish that we found willing to cooperate.
It is safe to say we can welcome young Austin Carter to the ranks of being an outdoorsman. We need all the youngsters we can get.
In this current time when hunting and fishing are under attack by political extremists, it’s important to expose youngsters to the joys and thrills of enjoying God’s great gift of the outdoors. You can never start them too young and it’s never too late to get started.
Do yourself a favor; take a kid fishing and most likely it will make your day, as well as theirs.
