We spent last weekend on a lake that offers up pretty good largemouth and smallmouth fishing. One of my daughters asked to go catch smallies, so we did. We tossed swimbaits, topwaters, and drop-shots. We caught a pile of bronzers, including a couple that taped out past the magical 20-inch mark. She was very happy.
The following morning, her twin sister asked to go largemouth fishing, which meant it was time to go toss faux Kermits in the shallows. She also mentioned that she really wanted to get good at using a bait caster, which is basically a prerequisite to successful frog fishing.
While she eventually figured out how to cast without nonstop backlashes, her ability to follow instructions on how to wait and then set the hook after a blowup wasn’t great. My reaction, after about the 50th lost fish, wasn’t great either. I’m not proud of it, but we moved on and she eventually caught a few fish, including the dumbest four-pounder in the lake that just couldn’t resist taking a dozen swipes at a popping frog.
Every adventure with my daughters in the outdoors teaches me something about myself, and often, it’s not that I’m always a calm and collected kind of fella.
Success At All Costs
Maybe it’s an ego thing, I don’t know, but I do know that when I take my girls hunting or fishing, I want them to succeed so bad that I can lose focus of what we are there for. Case in point happened last November when I pulled one of my daughters out of seventh grade to hunt the rut in northern Wisconsin.
At one point, we ended up scouting out a piece of public land during a midday lull. We found tons of buck sign, so we built a plan for the following morning. An hour into our sit, a stick cracked, and then a legit 130-inch eight-point started to walk into view. For that area, that buck was almost like seeing a unicorn.
It was perfect, until he did what big bucks do, which is decide to cut through a corner of a patch of cover that took him 10 yards too far from us for her to get a shot. It was an amazing encounter, and also devastating. Later on that hunt, while we were sitting in a light rain, a much smaller buck walked right up to us and caught us completely off guard. As she tried to jockey into position to shoot, the small five-pointer bolted.
As we drove home, our spirits weren’t great, which was dumb. We had some amazing encounters, and it was a hell of a lot better than not hunting, even if we didn’t kill.
The thing about this stuff is that you should try to facilitate success, but also remember that hunting is hunting, and not killing. I know that’s clichéd, but every new hunter has to learn that lesson, many times. So do older hunters, apparently.
Finding A Balance
My daughters are patient. They’ve done all-day sits for turkeys, deer, and bear, which isn’t easy. They are also not morning people. I know that’s a shock for 13-year-old girls, but if there is a way for me to burn them out on hunting and fishing, it’s by getting them up an hour and a half before dark for a couple days in a row.
Whether that involves topwater smallies in July or big woods whitetails in late October, the same rules apply. They will get up if they have to, but I always have to find a balance between pushing it too much, and allowing them to still enjoy it.
The thing about this is, there is a constant battle for time with kids. For some reason, we decided as a society that going to school for nine months a year and playing some seasonal sports, wasn’t enough. Now, our kids are in year-round sports on top of tons of other activities, all of which eat up the available hours in any given week.
This means that you might have to fight for time on the water and in the field, and you’ll want to use it wisely. Walk that tightrope, get them out there, just try not to overdo it.
Different Goals
Some of my good buddies have sons, and they are pretty typical boys. They have a BB gun or some other weapon attached to their hip, and there isn’t a sparrow or starling or chipmunk or you-name-it that they don’t want to shoot.
This might get me in trouble, but it’s also fundamentally true: boys and girls are wired differently when it comes to outdoor activities. My daughters aren’t bloodthirsty little savages, mostly. They set rules from an early age that just surprised me, like no rabbit hunting or no shooting does with fawns. Some of these rules change in the moment, and some of them don’t.
It’s just how it goes, and if you know anything about raising girls, it’s that you better stick to those rules or things can go south in a hurry. They want different things out of their time in the woods, and that’s just fine. It’s better to skip the bunny hunting if that’s what keeps them happy being hunters, and happy hunting with you.
The Next Generation
I believe this to be true—my generation is the first to truly give our daughters the same opportunities we have traditionally given sons. This is a good thing, and I think it might be the way we keep hunting going for a few extra decades.
It also comes with plenty of responsibility on our part. If I can borrow a reference from the bird dog world, us girl dads aren’t quite dealing with the prey drive that a lot of boy dads are working with. That doesn’t mean we can’t foster the creation of a new generation of outdoor enthusiasts. We can, and we should.
It just requires a different path. One I’m finding, is absolutely worth taking.
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