3 Tips on How to Teach Your Kids to Fish with Lures

Taking kids fishing can be tremendously fun, watching them experience the excitement and wonder from connecting with an underwater creature. Although bait is great for novices, there can be complications. For example, bait may not be available, it is easier to cast off the hook, plus there can be an element of squeamishness. Fishing with lures can be just as effective as bait but kids will need to learn how to fish with a lure to give it bait-like action. Here then, are three tips on how to teach your kids to fish with lures.

1. Practice

Set a hula-hoop or a bucket out in the yard as a target and turn it into a casting game with a spin-cast reel combo. This builds much needed confidence with how to fish with lures during actual fishing when there are complications like tree limbs and wind. If you don’t have an actual practice casting plug, remove the hooks from one of those old lures you found along the shore.

2. Plastics

Before venturing into fishing with spoon lures, fishing with jig lures, or bass fishing with lures with dual treble hooks like crankbaits, use soft plastics as a helpful part of how to teach your kids to fish with lures. Wide-ranging in shapes and sizes, they are generally rigged with a single hook. They can even be rigged weedless with the hook tip not exposed; creating a lure that is safer and more forgiving with misplaced casts. Kids visiting a farm pond will soon learn that there is no wrong way how to fish with lures that are soft plastics, such as the old rubber worm. Let it sit, reel it in steady, or anything in between… bass and big sunfish might smack it. Another different plastic lure is the topwater frog. How to fish a frog lure depends on the fish. Sometimes bass want a frog that sits until the ripples stop; other times, they may want to chase a rapid racer.

3. Pick

Another helpful part of how to teach your kids to fish with lures is to let them choose their own lures. A little guidance may be necessary as far the lure type or size, but they could contribute color selections. If kids pick their own soft plastics, the contents may escape packaging on the return trip from the tackle store. This is okay, as long as not pre-rigged with hooks. Let them play with the creatures, start thinking about how it might move. The next step will be how to make it move enticingly when connected to fishing line.

In most states, kids won’t need a fishing license until 16. There often is allowance for parents who only help their kids, but check the regulations in your state. Better yet, go ahead and make sure your fishing license is up to date in case your kid wants you to fish too.