Fishing with Kids Tip?

[Hoss50]

My 5 year old is bugging me to take him fishing which is why I am posting this. I live in the west valley and have been trying to figure out what the best place to take him would be. I live near Pioneer park, but it has no shade which sucks. I am thinking Rio Vista Park would be better. Does anyone else have any recommendations?

 

Also, I am pretty novice at fishing. I know some of the basics, but what are the best baits and such to be using in the urban lakes? What is the best fish to target? I don't care what we catch, I just would like to catch something.

 

Thanks

Harley

[jim]

Worm and a bobber for anything that bites. All those parks have some kind of fish in them. Get him going why he has the interest.

[azpredator@work]

Use light tackle as well. I feel bad for the kids with a 6' heavy action rod with 20lb test throwing a worm under bobber on a #2 hook for some perch....

 

Bring plenty of snacks and make it an enjoyable experience. When my boy was small I was way too hard on him and he didn't enjoy it until he started going without me. Taught me a lesson!

[CouesPursuit]

I like the worm and bobber advice above better, but consider hotdogs and whiskers to be a neat experience for a youngin as well.

[hawkens]

Small hook , bobber and meal worms he ll be busy with blue gill all day my kids have a blast

[Hoss50]

By small hook, what are we talking about roughly? I picked up some 6,8,&10's today at Sportsmans Warehouse just to get a little variety.

[Allforelk]

I like Aberdeen 6's or 8's. The longer shank helps to release the hook. With the thin wire you can thread a worm past the eye for a natural presentation.

[firstcoueswas80]

Take a weekend trip to the mountains, or saguaro, canyon, or even down south and slay the blue gill. I haven't been to Pena blanca snice the dredged it, but it used to be FILLED with pan fish.

[PRDATR]

For a young kid lots of time getting the knack to use a spinning reel can have more of a learning curve that a kids setup with a pushbutton reel. You can get those readily at Walmart in a combo with a 4 to 5 foot pole. Only thing I would recommend would be to take the line that comes on it off and put some 6 or 8 pound test Berkley Trilene fishing line. It will cast smoother and wont have have the memory that cheaper lines have.

Game and fish does a few free fishing clinics all year and there is one near you on May 6th. The Urban Lakes program is really well supported and most all lakes are stocked every week or so with catfish now in the summer months and trout in the winter. You can get a family license and the nice thing about him having a license is he can take a full limit where if he doesn't have a license he can only take a half limit.

 

https://s3.amazonaws.com/azgfd-portal-wordpress/azgfd.wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/12102516/Fishing-Clinic-Schedule-for-2017-Spring.pdf

 

http://www.azgfd.gov/h_f/urban_overview.shtml

 

https://www.azgfd.com/fishing/stockschedule/

[Hoss50]

We went to the G&F event today at Cortez Park this morning. It was a nice little event. I was thinking they might be offering a little more instrution, but it was more an event to offer an opportunity. Still it was a good event, and I am glad we went. We didn't have much luck, but we did manage to land 1 fish which is my son's first real fish.

[AZkiller]

Awesome! I love watching my kids' faces when they catch a fish!

[Hoss50]

It was pretty fun to watch. He was excited. He didn't really know what to make of it when we got it up, but I made him touch it and he came around more to touching it after this pic was taken.