At what age should I get my kids started in fly fishing? This question came to us this week and it's a good one. Actually the question was At what age was Annie (our daughter) when she started fishing?
Annie went with us to the stream occasionally when she was a toddler (3-5). During these years she mostly learned to throw rocks, get her shoes wet, and slip and slide around on wet stones. But it became somewhat familiar territory for her and she would see us catch a fish now and then. Mostly it was stream side babysitting and not much fishing for us either.
As she got older she played by herself alongside the stream doing the usual stuff – making mud pies, floating sticks, throwing more stones, but now she would come out and net the fish for us. She would make a few casts with the rod but didn't have much attention span yet. We have a pond with panfish and she did much better at the pond catching bluegills – they were easier, she could handle them and let them flop around in the dirt and grass and they would swim away happily when she got them back in the water. It was especially nice at the pond in May because when the bluegills are spawning they are close to the edge and she could see them take the fly – and it's not too buggy or weedy yet. She learned quickly how to smooth down the spines so she wouldn't get pricked.
When she was ready (for her it was around 11/12), we found a riffle on our home stream where she could stand at the edge in water that wasn't too deep and practice her casting with a fly. The moving water camouflaged her sloppy casts and the fish had less time to decide about the fly, so it sometimes resulted in her catching a fish. There's nothing like a reward at any age, but especially with kids. They need to get results or they will soon get b
ored. From that point on it was pretty easy and she learned as she gained experience.
For us, it has come full circle, so to speak, because we are now taking our grandsons, who are 5 & 6, fishing. They have Echo Gecko fly rods which they use like little spey rods and have become quite good at getting the fly out there. We are enjoying every minute of it.
What is the right age to take a child fishing? Whenever they want to go!
Father's Day Photo Contest
In Honor of Father's Day we're hosting our next Photo Contest. Send us your favorite photos of kids fishing. Any kind of fishing is fine, it doesn't have to be fly fishing. We will accept photos for the next 2 weeks until June 25th and the winner will be announced by June 30th. Email your entries (no more than 2 each please) to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We will share your photos each week on our blog and our office staff will cast votes for the favorites. We hope you have fun searching through your new and old photos to find your entries! We're looking forward to seeing them!
First Place winner will receive a Hoodman loupe- one of our favorite accessories while photographing.
Second Place winner will receive a 16 GB card to fit your camera and a card wallet.
We've received several requests to sell our imprinted fly boxes that we use for our selections. These boxes are lightweight, foam-lined, with a transparent lid. Perfect to put in a pack or shirt pocket when you want to go light.
The high deer hair wing makes the fly float well and easy to see. It's also very durable and will last through many fish. After the Sulphurs, we'll see Lt. Cahills and Slate Drakes. With the arrival of these two hatches, we'll know for sure that summer is here. 
Thinking about baby tarpon, snook, jacks, maybe big tarpon? Holbox has it all, with an interesting fishing program to match. Start at sun up each day and fish until mid-afternoon. Come back to the lodge, relax, rest, enjoy hors d'oeuvres, and walk into town for dinner. 
"We are having an interesting week here at Belize River Lodge. We've had a mix of sun and overcast skies making sighting fish on the flats difficult, but no rain. A building breeze most days feels good until after lunch when it picks up and we head for the rivers and lakes. Fishing has been an interesting discussion at cocktail hour each night. Everyone is getting lots of opportunities and we're all taking about fish caught, lost, jumped, broken off - all the usual results. We hadn't seen any big tarpon around at all and yesterday Ron Schwarz turns around and lands a 100+ pound fish. He fought it for over 2 hours and was worn out. The biggest fish he ever caught. Dick Barnett was the first to land a nice tarpon, about 50 pounds, first day out. Yesterday Skip had 4 nice snook by 9:30. First day out we chased permit all day long - they followed, we changed flies, they followed, we changed the retrieve, they followed and stayed around but we could not get them to eat. Everyone is having fun with baby tarpon and the usual bonefish. Overall, it's a great week and we're all happy to be here!"