Monday night I was asked to watch Elisabeth, my daughter, during the day Tues because mom had places to be… so I offhandedly said “Sure, we can go fishin’…”
By the look on her face you’d have thought she won the lottery! 
So Tues afternoon about 2:30 we got to packing my Mustang with the fishing gear. Yeah, taking the ‘Stang on a fishing trip was a bit odd, but we made it work. After checking and rechecking the gear, hitting Bobby & Steve’s on Penn for bait and Wayzata B&T for a couple odds and ends and directions to a good shore spot on ‘Tonka, we finally made it to the public docks outside Sunsets on Wayzata Bay.
A billion panfish… in about every year class you can think of. We pulled in 2 largemouth, too. We kept a few for the frying pan, and since it was her first trip out I was a little more liberal with my standards for “keepers”. But the ones we kept were decent even if a little smaller than I’d have liked.
There were a couple interesting things. We got to the water about 4:45, and I had to DRAG her back to the car at 9:45! My four-year-old fished for 5 hours, non-stop… and she freaking baited her own line with crappie minnows for almost the entire time. Blew me away! And she was SOOOOO excited every time she hooked a fish.
All the way home she kept saying “I had fun today, Dad.” Probably half a dozen times in 45 minutes. I couldn’t have been happier with the outcome. We had an absolute blast… and she took to fishing like she’d been doing it for years.
All in all a very auspicious start to what will hopefully be a lifelong bond for she and I.
