---

   This past week, my grandson, Zane, went on a fishing trip to northern Minnesota. The group he went with included two families with several children. Not surprisingly, he said, at times it became fairly dangerous being in a boat with a few children flinging lines in various directions with sharp hooks attached. A person learns to watch closely and duck at appropriate times. This reminded me of taking Zane out fishing when he was just a little kid.

   Zane was about three or four years old when he received his first fishing rod. He practiced casting religiously and became quite proficient at it well before his first trip to the lake. His little Snoopy pole came with a small red fish that provided the weight enabling him to practice cast. He had been in the boat with his dad and me several times while we were fishing and was now ready to go fishing for real rather than being a spectator.

   It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon when we decided to go try our luck at catching a few fish. We put Zane’s little life jacket on him, loaded the gear in the boat and headed out on the calm water. While rigging our rods, Damon and I decided, for safety reasons, we would leave his little red fish weight on his Snoopy pole rather than starting him out with real hooks. We were concerned about him getting a hook in his finger but more concerned about getting his hook in the back of one of our heads.

   Fishing was going quite well. Damon and I were catching a few bass and Zane had not smacked either of us or himself with his little red fish weight. We move the boat over to an area where several fallen trees were mostly underwater. This is perfect habitat for bass and crappies and usually yields several fish. Zane cast next to a sunken log and set his hook, if he had had a hook on his line. We both just assumed he was snagged on an underwater branch. He started reeling furiously. The drag on the Snoopy pole was slipping but he was moving whatever was on his line closer to the boat. He had worked it to within a few feet of the boat when suddenly a bass jumped out of the water and spit out the little red fish that was only a decorative weight. It looked like it was a three- or four-pound fish, large enough to get all of us excited. It was then we agreed, it was time to get the boy a real fishing lure. He was catching bigger fish than we were on a piece of plastic with no hooks. We switched his weight to a spinner bait and let him continue. We did not have any accidents or incidents other than one time I set my hook too hard which sent it flying out of the water and smacked Damon in the back of the head. He did not express out loud what he was thinking since his young son was with us and he did not need to expand his vocabulary in that way. We had a very successful fishing trip with all three of us catching fish. Returning to the house, he had to explain in great detail to his Nanna, every cast thrown and every fish caught. Some of the incidences even included a bit of exaggeration. He even felt it necessary to include the part about his grandpa trying to hook his dad. He saw more humor in that more than Damon did, even without the colorful retort at the time.  From that day forward, Zane was a confirmed fisherman.

---