My granddaughter is 4 (going on 14) and I get to spend a lot of time her and her younger brother. Saturday evening we tied flies with a specific purpose... Sunday morning we went to a slough off the Chena River near North Pole. She had to use pink so a black conehead on a size 14 hook followed by a non-descript nymph body and lots of dyed pink Ostrich herl for a thorax were put to use.

It was beautiful and sunny, but windy in the morning. My son cast for her with an 8'6" 4wt and her very first retrieve produced a beautiful male grayling with a magnificent dorsal fin. Her fifth grayling on her fly was over 16" which is a pretty decent grayling by almost any standard. She insisted on using her "Frozen" fishing rod and a casting bobber and even caught fish on it, 100% on her own. I was tickled to see her enjoying the fishing so much.

Unfortunately she did not understand the beauty of tying the fly and catching the fish as she has grown up with fly tying around her and has tied quite a few "whimsical" flies previously and a few actual patterns.