Fish on kid

I am worried about my son! And in conjunction with that I am disappointed with myself. I was looking at a picture of my son with the very first fish he caught by himself the other day, and I found myself thinking what a lucky kid he was. You see, at the tender young age of six, my son has already got several notches in his piscatorial belt that many of us took years to get. Not only was his first fish a ridiculously large 19+ (give or take) inch rainbow trout, he has also brought to hand cutthroat trout, rocky mountain whitefish, bull trout, and pike. It is from this litany of fishy exploits the my worry sprouts. I am worried that one day (when he stops fishing and learns to read) he will come across those articles that we have all read that tell us how hard it is to catch fish, how technical fishing can be, how uncommon and rare ridiculously large 19+ (give or take) inch rainbow trout are, and how much time one must put in fishing to even have the hope of catching one. I am worried that after reading these articles he will say to himself, "this is hard"? "I have accomplished all these things and more already!"  "I must be good, in fact I must be GREAT!"  And this type of thinking will lead him down a path where he will think that all days will be 50 fish days, all tall, blonde, large breasted women will love him, and he will be a millionaire before he is thirty! And this is where I am disappointed with myself. I have this compulsion to tell him the truth. To explain to him that fishing (like life and large breasted blonde women) can, and often does offer up failure in spades. And that fishing (like life) is not really about success, but rather about failure and how you let it affect you (bitter or better). It is during this type of thought process that I have to catch myself and stop, and realize that I need to let him be a kid.  I need to let my children run through the grass barefoot (without worrying about hidden sharp things).  I need to let them scream and laugh at the top of their lungs (without worrying what the neighbors might think).  I need to let them ride their bikes with speed and wild abandon (without worrying about broken limbs), because it is exactly these types of scrapes and failures and disappointments that make those uncommon and rare ridiculously large 19+ (give or take) inch rainbow trout and 50 fish days just so FREAKINGLY awesome and memorable.  If I try to tell them all of this now I'm just gonna spoil it. So, I'll just shut up and hand my son the rod.   Fish on kid, fish on!

The ridiculously large 19+ (give or take) inch rainbow