- November 18, 2024
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The rod twitched and then bent like a reed pummeled by wind as the fish tugged at the end of the line. Hanak Dawes, 10, reeled it in, and Washington Oaks Gardens State Park volunteer Larry Rekart helped her pull her catch — a pigfish — from the water.
Hanak, a New York resident, was one of five children to show up Friday, June 11 for the park’s Youth Saltwater Fishing Workshop, and it was the first time she’d fished in Florida.
“It was exciting,” she said. “And when the fish got on, I was like, “Whoa!’”
The other kids lucked out, too.
Within about an hour when the fish started biting, Joe Marotti, 12 and visiting from Cincinnati, reeled in a pigfish; 10-year-old Sienna Martinez caught a catfish; Ben Sturbelle caught a gray snapper and Tyler Martinez caught a mangrove snapper, the species the kids were targeting.
Rekart, an Oregon native and avid fisherman, helped the kids land their fish.
“I started fishing at an early age,” he said. “In the ‘40s, you got your fishin’ pole, and you went down to the stream and you fished,” he said.
Rekart worked in the tackle industry in the Northeast and then retired to Flagler County, and keeps a pontoon boat out on Dead Lake for freshwater fishing. He said he never met a bad person fishing. And when a kid gets the bug, he said, they’ve gained a lifelong pastime.
“These kids — they get their first fish, and they learn the right way to do it from the rangers — they’ll fish the rest of their lives,” he said.
The kids’ spinning rods, provided by the park, were rigged up with little bits of shrimp that would catch mangrove snappers, but also plenty of other fish, said Washington Oaks Gardens Ranger Joe Woodbury.
That gave the kids a better chance of reeling in a fish. But the mangrove snapper were biting, and the kids reeled in some legal-sized ones.
“The last two mangrove snappers caught were bigger than any other this year,” Woodbury said.
The rangers had rigged up the kids’ fishing rods with fish-finder rigs, using little bits of shrimp on size 4 hooks at the end of a 12”-16” 20-pound test leader attached to a barrel swivel. Above the barrel swivel, they rigged a small red plastic bead and a ½-ounce or ¾-ounce egg sinker. (The sinker on the rig carries the bait low, but the unweighted leader allows it to drift above the bottom with the current.)
Showing kids what bait to use and how to rig it gives them a handy head start, Woodbury said.
“When I was these kids’ age, I didn’t know anything,” he said. “Little by little, I learned. And now I really love to fish.”
All of the rigs used Friday employed circle hooks, Woodbury said, which are less likely to injure fish than traditional J hooks because they’re wider, and fish are less likely to actually swallow them.
“We try to teach conservation in relation to fishing,” he said. “That would mean higher test line” — it’s less likely to snap off in the water — “and circle hooks as opposed to J hooks.”
But the class is as much about experience as information.
“Anything that gets kids outdoors and away from the screen is beneficial,” Woodbury said. “The most complex computer program can’t simulate what it’s like, with the breeze on your face and a nice fish on the end of your line.”
The next Youth Saltwater Fishing Workshop at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park is July 18. Advance registration is required. For information on how to register, visit floridastateparks.org/washingtonoaks/events.cfm?viewevent=11983#11983 .
