Took my son down to Steelhead falls today to see if the big bugs were out.There were a few around and I hooked a couple nice fish. We were just screwing around and I really had no intention of letting him cast,thinking he was just a little too young still. The rod I had was too big for him I thought, he just turned 4. So I am casting away and he comes over and says"Hey, when can I fish" I thought about it for a second and said "Right now" and handed him the rod not really expecting him to do much with it. I was casting an 11'6" Forecast 6/7 with a SA short head and a big Chubby Chernobyl. I held my hands over his and showed him the motion and what to do for maybe 30 seconds.He then said " Get out of the way Dad, I know how to do it" The video below is not the best but it shows what he did as soon as I stepped out of the way. He was easily overhead casting 30+ ft including leader.Being able to use two hands made casting much easier for him being so small. He had no trouble pivoting that rod around and giving it a forward push making some very serviceable casts right out of the gate. I was kind of blown away. He will be able to cast much earlier using two hands then waiting to get strong enough( and coordinated enough)to fish with one hand. Game on Baby!

He has messed around one other time on the lawn with a rod of mine,but this is the first time he has ever had a spey rod in his hands with fly on in a fishing situation.As I watched the Chubby skate along on a tight line, I immediately thought of several places on the North Umpqua where he had enough line out to get the up close fish. This boy is gonna catch a steelhead long before he is probably even 6 at this rate.

I couldn't be prouder!