I figured out why some grandfathers take their grandchildren fishing.
While I have rods of various types rigged with fishing line of different strengths, I sometimes like to fish with ultralight equipment. This is especially true if I am targeting smaller species like sunfish, bream or crappie. If I happen to entice a larger fish on to my hook, like a bass, this has the added bonus of forcing me to finesse the fish rather than muscle it into the boat.
I was sitting in the middle of a small lake/large pond the other evening in my fishing kayak. I was endeavoring to tie a lure on to six pound test fishing line. My eyes have gotten so bad I was having trouble seeing the thin, light line. I gave up on using anything less than that strength a long time ago. While I do not have arthritis in my hands very bad, it does make my fingers a little stiff from time to time. With the fineness of the six pound test line, with the difficulty in seeing that line, I was struggling engineering the line into a good knot.
They do make fishing glasses with powerful magnification, probably exactly for this reason, or maybe for fly fishing fly makers. I could buy a pair of those glasses, soak my hands in WD40, and then go fishing.
Cynical me is betting, though, generations of grandfathers, under the pretext of teaching junior’s offspring the art of fishing, have manipulated their grandchildren into tying lures onto fishing line… just for the reason detailed above. Not really, but it was a passing random thought as the small diameter line was kicking my butt.
And so it goes.
