Sunday, September 07, 2003

Fishing with Children in Mississippi River When bringing a two-year-old fishing, there are a few ground rules to establish with them before starting: Don't eat the bait. Don't pour all the bait into the river Don't throw bobbers into the river If you get the fishing line wrapped around you and your father yells, "don't move, there is a hook on there!" don't just take off running. All those things were dealt with.  We went down to Minnehaha Falls and walked from there to where Minnehaha Creek empties into the Mississippi.  Tips for parents: Take the northern trail as the southern trail is too difficult for two-year olds. Go as early in the day as possible because the motorboats kind of suck on weekends. The children will turn into 25-pound sacks of potatoes when you are done fishing.  Bring a stroller unless you prefer the "drag one kid 500 feet, go back and drag the other kid 500 feet, repeat" method. Try to bring one adult per child under 5.  Or at least try not to be the only adult like I did today. Try to have one fishing pole per child or else random violence breaks out. Why didn't we catch anything?  Who knows?  Here is what we tried. Going at noon on a really hot day when there were lots of boats going by. Bait of Hot Dogs, corn, bread or french toast Use rather large hunks of food as bait.  (half a hotdog at one point fishing right off the end of a sand bar formed by the creek inflow buried the hook deep in the bait chummed the area with bread, corn, hot dogs       4:37:51 PM    comment []