Kids rod

My 2 year old is raring to try fishing this summer. He’s acting out catching fish with anything he can inside the house. We have a cabin on the north end of Mille Lacs and he states that he wants to be fishing out there with dad. Herein lies my problem. Even fishing the first break with bobbers, he’s going to have to use a slip bobber. Can you run a bobber stop in a spincaster kids reel? Any recommendations on if this can be done and a good kids rod for it? Or is there a spinning rod that would be easy for a kid? Or should I bite the bullet and find a place he can catch sunnies all day before taking him out on the big lake? It’s hard because we can literally be on a great spring walleye bite in a golf shot from our cabin so I’d like to take him there.

I started my grandkids with ice fishing rods using open faced reels. At 3 they were better with the open face than their fathers were with spincasts. The kids will have a few tangles with both but they figure out an open face faster than a spincast in my experience.

I agree go straight to open faced reels. They might figure out the closed faced reel faster and there will probably be less tangles. But in my experience you will have more work in the end trying to break them from the bad habits.

At this point in my fishing career I think it’s fair to say I have taught hundreds of kids to fish and I’ve never used a closed face reel to do so. Within an hours time they are casting and catching with ease using an open face reel.

You can barely get the line to spool off in-general with a snoopy pole. The over-sized mono they put on those gets pretty stiff. If you add a stop to that line, it will jam on the cast. You’re going to spend a lot of time yanking it off the spool, it wont come off on it’s own. (I know this from doing this with my boys)

If you think your boy could grasp it, consider using an ice fishing rod with a spinning reel. You’ll have to help cast but that’s a given anyway when they’re 2 years-old. I had both my boys using spinning reels by the time they were 3 or 4.
The snoopy poles have their place but they’re best saved for the dock where you’re dropping the line down three feet with a red/white bobber.

One thing to note, though – Don’t give them an expensive set-up – it WILL go overboard. Might be a good idea to somehow add a float to it with chuck of pool noodle of something.

Start teaching him how to use a spinning reel now. Letting him “fish” off the side of the boat in the garage, off the back of the couch, over a railing, whatever. Make a game of it somehow.

Get a cheapo rod and reel for him as well. Change out the line to something that won’t be a coiled mess.

I have multiple Frozen and Barbie spincast rods for the girls and it is a struggle with slip bobbers. It can be done but as others stated use open face

OH OH!!!

Zeboco Dock Demons, If you want a simple setup. Just have to respool the line and you will be good. Good for bobber and bass fishing, caught plenty of 3lb bass using this setup with a senko 3EWG hook.

Going to start transitioning to a spinning rod this season.

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I gave my son an open face and spin cast at the same time and let him play with both. He picked up on the spin cast quicker. But liked the open faced better since it casted farther. It didn’t take long before he wouldn’t even touch the spin cast. I put a small ball on the end and he would cast off the couch to the dogs and fight them for hours. When we hit the boat in the spring he was all ready to go. Make sure to keep it fun and you will have a fishing buddy for life.

Hook set on the dog (if someone knows how to combine the pic into a gif that would be great.)

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Great advice. I’d also skip the snoopy rods but I will add, nothing wrong with a nice closed face spin cast zeboco. I bought my wife one and her PB walleye is a 28” hog out of Mille lacs. I’d be slightly worried that a spinning reel might be too much to handle pending their age while taking some of the fun out of fishing…but only you’d know that.

And to answer your question, yes you can run slip bobbers in a (quality) spin cast reel…not sure about the cheapo snoopy rods.

Spin cast is fine. replace the line on any that come pre-spooled with 4 -6 lb. quality mono, along the lines of Trilene XL. They may break off a bass or northern but will then have a story to tell.