first fly rod for a 4 yr old

My son went with me fishing this weekend and saw me fly fishing and wants one of his own. Ok so where do I start? Is he to young? What should I spend and how would I even go about teaching him. His attention span is not much more than mine :slight_smile:

ohiotuber has a fly fishing granddaughter who I think is younger than your son. She likes his long fly rod, even though he tried to get her to use his 6’6 " 2 wt. I suggest the 6"6" 2wt that you could build for him in a weekend, and even put his name on it. Check them out at Hook & Hackle. Throw a cheap Medalist on it with a $20 fly line and you’re in business.

Joe

Yeah, little Tori now has her own fly rod, a ā€˜boo no less, that Jack Hise built for her. There need be no big investment of cash at these kid’s ages, & there wasn’t according to Jack (other than his kindness & friendship=PRICELESS!). The reel is a Medalist gifted by Anglerdave. I have the line & backing here, so she’s ready to go.
My advise is to take him to a small pond full of gills. You’ll be amazed how much he has learned already by watching you. When Tori first picked my rod up, she actually DID only backcast to 1 o’clock & stopped the rod close to 10 o’clock on the forecast…laid about 15’ of line out & stripped it back!..A 2 1/2 year old who out performed ol’ Gramps when he started!
Too young?..Not if HE asked…that, to me, is the key. When they ask to go & fish, take them. Just be prepared to also walk & look at bugs, frogs, trees, flowers, whatever…it’s outdoors & not some video game, & that’s a good thing.
Mike

What about that Echo Micro practice rod? It’s not a real fishing rod, but I bet he’d have fun with it and it’s only $30.

i had one in my sons hand at three lol. when you decide on a rod i have a couple brand new medalist reels. you may have one as a gift if you would like.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, To cast a good line shows a well-rounded youth; To cast too good a line shows a misspent youth…

My son is 14… This evening we had an annual casting clinic as part of a seminar held by the AK Fly Fishers and Riley showed a few folks how to improve their casting. At 14 he casts better than the vast majority of casters I have been around.

Last week he was casting in a difficult position under a bridge and sidearming casts at 45’ to big fish in inches of water. It was incredible watching what he can do. A friend and I watched him for a half-hour, jaws agape. Two years ago he spent hours casting to trout under overhanging brush and simply hammered them… without touching brush. Very short and absolutely accurate.

This past summer we did a fly-in pike trip and fly-fished for a solid week, all day, every day and spent about 16 hours each day casting flies and catching hundreds per day… Casting to pockets in the reeds was the rule and reach casts were required. Short, accurate and sweet with tons of reps… Motivated kids focus beyond belief.

He was almost three when a friend built him his first rod. It took until he was almost four to catch his first solo salmon on it, a silver.

Start 'em young!
art

I guess hap’s story clinches it. Go ahead and put a rod in the boy’s hands and let nature take its course.

Forget that PM I sent to you last night. Since mnklagoon is donating the reel, I’ll donate the Pflueger Purist 7’-6" 2-piece 4 wt. Just PM your address to me and I’ll package it up and ship it out. It’s only 3.5 oz, so it should be fine for him to get started with.

Joe

Justice League, You’ve already received great advice, but I’ll try an answer your questions from my point of view…
#1. You’ve already started. He ā€œsaw me fly fishing and wants one of his ownā€. I have a 4 Y/O and anyone will tell you as I’m sure you already know, he’s gonna mimic your every move. You took him fishin’ and the seeds have been planted.
#2. Continue by bringing him to a pond full of hungry 'gills.
#3. No he’s not too young. Work with his (and your) short attention span by bringing along a long handled frog/minnow net and a bucket. When fishing gets boring for him there’s a thousands of critters to catch and observe when you’re pond side.
#4. It sounds like the ā€œhow much to spendā€ has been taken care of. What a generous bunch of guy’s and girls we have here!
#5. I’m not qualified to answer the how to teach him part. What I plan on doing with my son is get him to dap down some gurglers or other poppers and work on getting the line/fly out further as he gets more comfortable.
I have not put a fly rod in juniors hands yet (he has mastered casting the spin caster) but plan giving him a fly rod this summer. I am happy to say that he has caught his first fly caught fish this spring on a ā€œfly & bobberā€ I set up for him.
Now for a few bits of unsolicited advice:

  1. Bend down the barbs on his hooks. No need to explain this one.
  2. The first few times, don’t plan on you doing any fishing. Devote your energy to watching him and giving him the attention he’s gonna need. You gotta make it fun and memorable for him. It will be quite frustrating for you (I’m speaking from personal experience) if you are trying to fish and tend to his needs.
    Have fun,
    Tom

Outstanding advice.

Most important…leave your rod at home.

Never too young to start here is a thread of my two year old (he’ll be three in August) first day out, Althou he lacks the control, he tried his hand at casting like dad.

http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/showthread.php?t=20357

Well, as ā€œanother one with a very young fishing partnerā€, I guess I’ll weigh in on even more, perhaps un-needed advice…
Samantha, (Sam), my 6 year old granddaughter has been a constant pond/lake fishing companion of mine, now, since the age of 5-1/2.
She began, exactly as your son did, ā€œby watching and wanting to mimicā€.
I waited and watched her, a while, one season with her using a quality spinning out fit, me with a fly rod set up. But, when she kept ā€œmimicking meā€ , as she had been trying to do to begin with and trying to cast her spin outfit like a fly rod, I felt she was ready to move on over to her own set up.
I built her a custom rod, that fits her weight and size and counterbalanced it with a Tioga reel. (a Medalist would be perfect for a reel as well, I just had a spare Tioga is all).
BUT where I made my very first mistake…was taking Sam fishing and leaving MY GEAR at home! We’d driven several miles to a lake here, that I’d fished recently and knew was full of small to medium LM Bass and 'Gills.
Once I showed her to rig her new rod, I set up her leader, tippet, popper, etc, and we were set.

Sammy couldn’t wait to get to the water and ā€œbegin fish’ninā€ and as I buttoned up my rig, closed the truck up, Sam asked me ā€œWhere’s YOUR fish’nin rod, Gampa?ā€
I told her ā€œToday, Squirt is YOUR DAY! All for you, to try out your new rod and reel! I want to watch you, help you only if if you ask for it and see how you do!ā€

ā€œNever, mind, Gampa I don’t want to go fish’nin, if YOU’RE not going to fish with me!ā€
I tried to tell her, as best I could, that ā€œI didn’t want to become engrossed in MY OWN fishing and ignore her, so I could help her with her new outfitā€ (even though, even NOW when we fish together, I never get to ā€œengrossedā€ not to keep an Eagle eye on her around water).
ā€œNo, thank you, Gampa. It’s no fun, fish’nin, if you don’t fish too. I watch you, Gampa, then I know what to do, too!ā€ Was her final explanation. She, flat out, WOULD NOT fish, until we drove back home and I grabbed a rod and my vest!??!
I’d of course, known, that Sammy had shown interest in fly fishing BY WATCHING me, not from magazines or off of a TV program, but never thought just how much ā€œher watching and mimicking meā€ meant to her.

So, instead of ā€œleaving my gear at home and concentrating on just herā€, Sam’s learned to fly fish by ā€œwatching and learningā€, not merely by ā€œbeing taught with her own equipmentā€. Of course, I’ve spent many wonderful hours, with Sammy and her own rod setup, showing her different things but even then I’ve had my own gear along as well.

Sam loves to fly fish, bragging or not sorry, but she’s getting very good at it, (despite the fact, the poor child had ME to learn from) and this summer she’s enrolled in a junior’s casting clinic. But, she learned the ā€œbasicsā€ watching me, mimicking me, and fishing with me.(Or, her Dad, another Trout Bum of the family).
EVERY child is different. EVERY child will learn something in his, or, her own way.
Where one child may learn very well, if given 100% attention, by you leaving your own gear at home…another, like my Sam, didn’t want any part of that style of learning experience.
One reason she loves to fish is because it’s a ā€œtogether thingā€ with her Daddy or her Gampa and single, one on one learning didn’t interest her at all. It took all the fun out of learning how to fish for her!??!
Someone said. ā€œlet nature take its courseā€ and that’s excellent advice.

Joe, mnklagoon, nice going, beautiful gestures.

I just need to reinforce what Paul had to say, because I experienced it firsthand tonight. I was asked to assist in a fly casting session for 12 adults as part of a 7-week fly fishing class. I would help 3 of the people develop their casting from what they learned on the lawn last week, to actually doing it on the water with real flies tonight. I was told to leave my rod at home so I could focus 100% of my attention on assisting the students. Being a slow learner, I ignored the edict, and took my charges to the far end of the lake along with my 3wt in hand. After working through the ā€œmuscle memoryā€ exercises with each of them, I then had them watch what I was doing with my casting, and to mimic me as best they could. After about 30 minutes total time of focusing on them, I told them I would let them practice on their own, and if they started having problems, to just watch what I was doing and to do the same.

We spent a total of 2-1/2 hours together on the water, and all three were doing much better than I expected at the end of our time on the water. Once they started figuring out that the easy stroke I was using was giving them more distance, it was like an epiphany for each of them, and when they started using my fast-short strip retrieve, they started catching fish as well, and that is what cinched it for them as it all came together…easy stroke gave them more distance + straighter cast = catching fish, which is why they were there to begin with. The smiles on their faces while learning to bring in those feisty bass, gills & crappies on a fly rod for the first time was priceless.

Take the rod along. You can always leave it in the car, but like Paul, you just may have to go home to retrieve it. Better to have it and not need it.

Joe

I just want to say that I’m really impressed with the advise given here.
Just fit the activity to the skill level. Remember to make it fun and don’t think about too much fishing yourself, when you’re with the young ones until they show some sensible independence. Its safety that is the biggest issue. They will keep you busy enough. Once they start saying go away, and they can tie there own knots, untangle there own birds nests and release a fish on their own, you’ll be able to spend more time fishing yourself. One thing I’ll add…take them away from the activity before they get bored and while they are still having fun. They may not want to go but if you take them away when they are having fun, they will alway want to go back for more. If you wait until they are saying ā€œwhen are we going home daddyā€ā€¦it’s too late.

I took my 18 month old grandson out a few times last summer…and we fished for maybe ten or 15 minute intervals… then went off to play on the swings or throw stones. He loves catching blue gills and he’s been bugging me all winter to go out again. The bluegills are just coming up now so it’s time. Last year I sat with him between my legs with my hand on the rod ( I didn’t have a tether). It’s a 6 ft 2 wt I built for him. We dapped dries on the surface and watched the fish come up for them. This year I may try to see if he’s ready to roll cast a little. If not, thats ok. He’ll be ready next year.

This is Ben with his first Bass on a fly. He was catching bluegills the week before. He’s 18 months old here.