Family Outing: Fishing

It's the school holidays and we don't have the money for lavish trips overseas. But that doesn't mean we can't have fun family activities.

My brother is an avid fisher and he invited us to one of his fishing trips. I asked the kids if they were game and they said yes. So, off we went to spend a day with my brother. We stayed overnight at his place. There was a pool so they had a blast splashing around. We left for the fishing lake the next morning after breakfast.

First thing was learning to put on the bait. Got to be careful with those hooks, they're really sharp. It involved getting the hands dirty and so the kids chose to leave this job to their mom... ME. They were more interested in casting the line and reeling in the fish.

It wasn't long before D1 saw his rod jiggling around. Excitedly he reeled in the first catch of the day. It was a small fish.

It is a catch-n-release pond, so we unhooked the fish and let it back into the pond again. A few minutes after, another fish took the bait. This time a bigger one.

Since we didn't have to wait long to catch the first 2 fishes, the kids were under the impression that catching fish was relatively quick. Of course that is not the case. There was a lull time where we didn't catch a fish for about an hour or more. The kids became antsy and kept wanting to reel in the line to see if the bait was still there. My brother explained that if they fiddled with the line, the bait will drop. Unfortunately waiting is difficult for kids. So they didn't listen and kept pulling up the line and we had to put on the bait again.

All in all, it was quite an interesting experience for the kids. My daughter K1 had fun reeling in the fish. My son D1 had too many encounters with the bamboo plant. 3 times he casted his line into the bamboo. That was stressful for me, trying to untangle the line. Kudos to my brother for being so patient with us amateurs. Hahaha.

It was good that my brother already had all the equipment ready and knew what to do. We would have been lost without him.

 This was the last big fish we caught. 

 Patiently waiting for the bell on the rod to ring. Ringing bell means there's a fish on the other end.

 K1 happily reeled this one in. 

MAMAS PARENTING TIP

• Fishing is a good way to teach your children patience. If they have no patience, an iPad is quite helpful in passing the time while waiting for the fish to bite. A book is even better.
• If you want to take your children fishing, make sure you go with someone who knows what to do and have spare fishing rods for you to use.
• This fishing pond is in Semenyih. It's a catch and release pond, so there are plenty of fish. However, I think there are certain times that the fish don't bite, like in the afternoon. We had better luck in the morning and towards the evening. 
• After this activity, you can teach your children about the different kinds of fish that we eat. Expand their knowledge about how different baits and hooks are used to catch different kinds of fish.
• Bring a bandaid.