Fishing with Grandpa: How Boating Brings Generations Together
The world changes and evolves every day. With new technologies, new ways to work, and ever changing ways to communicate, the world around us is almost unrecognizable from what it looked like 40 or even 20 years ago.
But one thing has remained a welcome haven from the speed of the world—fishing with Grandpa. When you get out on a lake or river, all the pressures that come with modern society can be set aside and you can take a breath as you engage in one of the greatest family traditions in the world.
Fishing with older adults brings so many benefits to both members of younger generations and to the adults who bring their fishing traditions to their grandchildren. Getting different generations into a boat and out on the water is good for everyone involved.
Lasting Benefits of Fishing with Grandpa
When we look at the benefits of intergenerational activities like family fishing trips, we can see that those benefits come in several different forms. Fishing is more than an activity that kills time on a camping trip or a visit to a cabin. It gives so much to the young people that participate in it—especially when they fish with an elder.
Stress Reduction and Relaxation
There is a certain posture and tension that a person takes on when they spend all their time looking at screens for work and school and recreation. Getting out on the open water allows you to look up, look around, breathe deeply, and relax your body while clearing your thoughts of all those things that add stress to your life.
Recreational fishing is, by its very nature, a low-stress activity. Catching fish is great, but the meditative act of putting your line in the water and allowing it to either catch a fish or not is its own reward. Fishing gives you all the benefits of meditation without the baggage of new-age pseudo-philosophy getting in your way.
Building Family Bonds
One of the great things about getting out in a boat is that, after you’ve finished teaching kids to fish, you have plenty of time to just talk. It gives grandparents the opportunity to really get to know their grandkids and lets kids have plenty of time to ask any questions that may have been on their minds that they weren’t sure they could ask.
This kind of intergenerational bonding lets kids learn about their family history while absorbing nuggets of Grandpa’s fishing wisdom. Most importantly, it lets the younger generation know that they have an adult in their life that is always there for them—giving them an invaluable sense of belonging and safety.
Passing on Skills and Habits
Something great about multi-generational water activities is that the benefits don’t stop at the water’s edge. Teaching kids how to clean and cook a fish, including any long-held family recipes, helps them develop one of the most valuable skills (cooking) they can have for when they grow up and move out on their own.
Fishing with Grandpa can also help the younger generation create habits of orderliness and tidiness. From keeping tackle boxes organized and maintaining your fishing equipment to stressing clean-up as a part of meal prep, you can help kids begin on a path of cleanliness that will serve them well for the rest of their lives.
Living Actively
Maintaining an active lifestyle for grandparents is not always easy. Health issues, surgeries, and so on can result in the elderly living a sedentary lifestyle. But just because a grandparent may have had a health setback doesn’t mean they can’t stay active.
After a surgery or a health problem, setting a recovery goal can help prevent apathy or lethargy set in. Setting the next fishing day with the grandkids as a recovery goal can help keep an elder engaged in their physical well being—which, in turn, has been shown to help keep their minds sharp.
Creating Lasting Memories
20 years, 30 years, even 40 or 50 years down the road, kids that built family fishing memories will be able to hold those memories close to their hearts. They will then build new memories with their own kids and grandchildren—passing joy and tradition from one generation to another in perpetuity.
Getting Out on the Water
Once you have determined that a family fishing trip is the right idea for your family, you can get into the details. Are you looking to get out on a river or a lake? Is this going to be a part of a larger vacation or the primary focus of your trip?
One thing that all of the best family-friendly fishing spots in Minnesota have in common is proximity to Your Boat Club boat rentals. That means that you can get out on the water for a full day of fishing just about anywhere worth fishing in the state without needing to buy an entire boat and trailer.
And if you haven’t been out in a boat for a while—or if the kids you bring fishing have never been out boating—Your Boat Club can help give you a rundown on boating safety for mixed age groups. The important thing is that you can get a boat to bring your family to where the fish are biting.
Read More: Fishing from a Boat: A Guide for Beginner Anglers
Generations Learning from Each Other
So you’ve recognized the benefits of fishing as a family and you know where you’ll get a boat. What else can you do to prepare to make this outing as successful as possible? What are some things that fishing with Grandpa can teach both the kids and the adults?
While the older generation can teach the younger how to cast off safely, how to bait a hook, where in a lake it’s better to go trolling, and where it’s better to drop anchor and let the fish come to you, grandparents can learn a thing or two as well.
The fact of the matter is that young people tend to be better at operating smart technology than their elders. Kids can show grandparents apps that track fish populations, identify hot spots as reported by other fishers, and so on.
The combination of wisdom gained through experience and knowledge accrued through modern technology can help everyone on the trip gain a better environmental education through fishing.
Telling Stories
Of course, one of the best parts of fishing is the storytelling on the water. From tales of fishing conquests of yesteryear to Grandpa telling the kids how things used to be in his day, the true tales and the exaggerations that get passed back and forth form some of the best fishing memories.
Sharing stories back and forth between the old and young plays a major part in creating fishing traditions. Some stories will be told year after year as new stories get created in the here and now. Those stories help perpetuate the kind of multigenerational connections that only fishing makes happen.
Documenting Your Fishing Trip
Fishing traditions don’t only need to exist in story form. Documenting family fishing trips is not only important to preserve your memories but can provide yet another activity that can help your family bond.
Smartphones make taking pictures and videos of your trip fishing with Grandpa incredibly easy.. But that is not the only way to document your trip. Mix in older technology like taking pictures with actual film cameras.
Collect the perspectives from all the different devices and cameras and make an annual photo album or scrapbook to commemorate your incredible bonding experience. Then you can pull them down and relive your great memories any time of year—just make sure you don’t drop your phone in the lake!
It’s Time to Cast Your Lines
Getting out in a boat for family fishing brings so many wonderful benefits. From the cognitive benefits of fishing for seniors to the opportunity to create lasting bonds and memories between children and grandparents, fishing is an incredible tool to solidify connections and teach the lessons that will keep your family strong for generations to come.
With a wide range of boat sizes and boat types as well as numerous rental locations, Your Boat Club can help you make the most of your family fishing trip. We get you on the water with a boat rental and then you create memories that will last a lifetime.
Fishing with Grandpa has been a tradition for countless families across the country for hundreds of years. With the right boat and the right mindset, you can make those traditions your own and put your family’s unique spin on one of the greatest aquatic activities that has ever been.
