By Rich Salter

Some of you that follow my fishing adventures may have seen the odd post featuring trips I’ve had with my children. I have 3 children and they’ve all joined me at some point over the years, with varying degrees of enthusiasm! Our 2 eldest, Brandon and Mason, aged 18 and 16 respectively, have both caught fish and done reasonably well, Brandon still reminds me that he caught a long spined sea scorpion before I did! Despite this success, the boys have never really caught “the bug” and although they’ll occasionally still have a dabble for an hour or so to humour me, they tend to have more interesting things to do with their lives these days!

Daisy, our 7 year old daughter, however, is much more enthusiastic and is keen to come fishing whenever we can fit it in between my job and her horse riding and gymnastics! 

In the past, I’ve chosen to head to the local canal to give the kids their early taste of fishing. It’s safe and you can be reasonably sure of catching a few small perch to give that bit of early success and confidence. 

Daisy has the same preference for saltwater fishing as me though, so our more recent sessions have been down on the coast at either Exmouth or Plymouth, both of these marks having the advantage of there being ice cream shops nearby, as well as some decent fishing.

Elphinstone car park has been a particular favourite spot of ours, it’s very convenient, as you can literally fish from the boot of your car and the railings that line the edge of the car park give the added safety I look for when we head out for our fishing trips, Daisy always comments that she feels safer here too, so we’re both happy. As well as its convenience and safety, Elphinstone can also produce some really good fishing and plenty of variety. On a couple of occasions when we’ve headed down for an evening session, we’ve entered the little competition that resident fishing tackle shop, The Bait Bunker, which runs on a Tuesday and Friday evening. 

This is where I need to ask the purists to look away – in order to keep the bites coming and try and make sure Daisy is enjoying her fishing, I’ve bought a bit of ragworm for her to use in the past. This has been extremely effective and Daisy has managed to win both competitions that she’s entered by catching the biggest fish of the night, each time catching good sized ballan wrasse and putting a lot of grown men to shame! I know it doesn’t count in LRF world, but it’s always felt like a big nod to how effective it is to simply scale down and fish for what’s in front of you, which is exactly what we do when Lerfing.

More recently, we’ve stuck to the artificials – Daisy understands the difference and is keen to catch fish using the pretty coloured lures that she finds in my lure bag. I take no greater pleasure than to see her excitement at catching the various species that she’s managed so far, each catch bringing genuine intrigue and excitement.

During our Elphi sessions, Daisy has caught tompot blennies, scorps, gobies and quite a few wrasse. Unsurprisingly, she confirms that the “big wrasse” are her favourite catch so far, that’s my girl!

Our most recent session was actually quite challenging, with only a couple of fish to show for our efforts. It was really nice to hear Daisy suggesting we could add a bit more time on the parking ticket if we needed to stay a bit longer. Of course, we had an ice cream break and a bit of lunch, but Daisy happily fished for a few fishless hours with no complaints, frequently stating that she loves fishing. Loving fishing despite not catching, that’s a proper angler there! Daisy’s patience was finally rewarded with a lovely tompot blenny which brought a big smile to both of our faces, as every catch always does.