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I hesitated to reply at first thinking maybe my methods weren't the best, but after reading Goose's post I see maybe I'm not so far off base. My kids are 7 and 13 (though I may be losing the older one from fishing to nailpolish, boys and shopping with her mom). One of the first things I did was pull out some kids' rods I'd been given and set them up with the practice sinkers that came with them. We set up all sorts of targets in the yard and (all of us, Ma 'n Pa, too) got to practice our casting skills. It was like a game of fishing golf, and soon we had curious kids from the neighborhood asking to play, too. Anyway, that was the foundation that showed me there was an interest and I would remind them when the time came to really go fishing they had to remember to be careful of the hook around other people and concentrate on where they were casting, etc. First we did freshwater at a local park, then hit some docks and less populated shore on the Cape. I think part of it is don't make it a long laborious affair, keep it short and take breaks to explain about everything else going on, like bait, tides, what lures do, what fish might be around, birds, etc. Now, wherever we go, if there's a chance we'll see some water I pack their stuff and mine, though when we all fish I tend to be baitboy, line detangler, unhooker, bobber-stuck-in-tree-remover... but as long as they want to stick with it, I'm cool with that. The next step will probably be some short charters for a little bigger fish.
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