Yesterday's Private Charter Fishing Report- Teaching a kid he can catch a fish

Yesterday I had another private this time on my skiff. This trip was a little different from many of my others, fishing with me was 16 year old who loves my TV show, but doesn’t get to do a lot of fishing because his parents don’t fish. His dad had made a nice donarion to my youth foundation, more than what I charge for a ½ charter so I offered to take his kid fishing.
First off the fishing report, fishing was ok, not great, conditions were ugly, dropping tide, lots of wind and the current was going in a different direction that the wind was blowing. It was what it was and I had no choice, but to stick it out and try to find fish for the kid. We ended the day with 15 sand bass, 11 calicos and a few sculpin. I only let him keep two calico’s and four sand bass, I try to get my clients to release all the calico’s I can, but he wanted to for fish tacos.
Here is something I wanted to share with you from yesterday and I see this all the time on party boats. This kids from the time he got on the boat told me if he didn’t think he’d catch any fish today and that it was ok, because he never catchs fishwhen he goes fishing, as he told me “I’m not expecting to catch anything today.” I told him over and and over as we headed out that he was going to catch a fish today. At the first sport I hooked two sand bass on my frist two cast, but I noticed the kids has having a hard time and with every fish I caught, ne because more sure that he wasn’t going to catch even one fish. My next cast I hooked a nice sandie, I set the hook and the I handed the fish off to him. He landed it and was starting to feel better, next cast I did the same thing and then I stopped fishing for a while I worked with him on his fishing skills.
After two hours of hands on, one on one teaching and fishing, the kid finally believed there wasn’t a fish in the ocean he could catch. I tell people this all the time and I’ll say again at my seminar tonight at the Tuner’s store in Torrance. Fishing fish is easy and if you believe you can catch a fish then you will. Like the bumper stickers say, Fear No Fish, that’s why I guess I see so many Dead Fish….