Do you want to know how to make a difference in the world and have fun doing it? Then look no further than your local neighborhood and you’re sure to find a child just itching for the chance to go fishing. It doesn’t take a fancy boat or expensive equipment to enjoy fishing, just a cane pole and a few crickets, worms, or minnows and you can have a ball. There’s plenty of streams, creeks, and small lakes in our area that can be accessed with a minimum of effort or expense.

Young Nathan Hodgins joined me on a late afternoon fish catching excursion this past week and we got to experience some down-home fish catching fun.

We left my modern bass boat at home, preferring to use a small johnboat in a secluded lake. Shortly after we pushed the boat off the bank, we were dancing a jig. Dancing a Shaky Head jig and Junebug colored worm to be precise. The bass seem to prefer lures that don’t move very fast this time of year.

When hot weather hits, the bass bite slows way down but if you know how to fish a shaky head you can load the boat.

Nathan and I both cast out and let the shaky head worms sink slowly toward the bottom. In seconds we both had strikes and nailed our first bass of the day. My bass hit the lure on its initial descent and then started slowly swimming away.

When you’re fishing the shaky head rig just cast it out and let it fall naturally. Sometimes the bass will hit It on the fall and sometimes they’ll come up and strike it when it’s sitting in one place. If you don’t get bit when it comes to rest on the bottom simply twitch the rod a bit and let it shake in one place. Oftentimes that’s all it takes to entice a hungry bass into eating. The shaky heads are known for drawing strikes from wary bass due to the undulating movement of the worm’s tail while it stays in one location.

As I sculled the boat silently off of a point, we both cast onto the submerged shelf and let the lures fall.

Wham! A hungry bass struck my shaky head hard and dove for deep water.

Bam! Yet another bass struck Hodgins’ shaky head and took off as well.

With two fish on at once, it was nip and tuck for a little bit. I quickly landed my bass and watched as the excited young angler fought the fish with all his might. The fish was giving that lightweight BPS Carbon lite Combo all it could handle but the young man kept battling the fish.

As the fish kept making runs and diving for deep water, I realized this was not a bass, but something probably bigger than any bass we’d caught all day as it never tired and never tried to jump.

Hodgins fought the fish like a seasoned pro and finally led the nearly exhausted catfish to my net! Yes, it was a big catfish and was the icing on the cake for a youngster fishing with a lightweight spinning reel and rod combo.

Though we were fishing for bass, the hungry catfish struck Hodgins’ enticing shaky head worm and wouldn’t let go. We’d both caught fish on the same cast and our day started with a bang and kept on getting better and better.

I’ve known a few people who said that they didn’t like to fish but upon further review I learned that they had some disappointing fishing trips and didn’t catch any fish. I don’t blame them for not liking fishing if they weren’t able to catch fish or if they didn’t have a good mentor to teach them how to catch fish.

When you take a kid fishing, they need to catch fish to enjoy it. When you take them fishing for the first few times make it fun, interesting and exciting and don’t stay too long if they’re not biting. Let the children fish as long as they are having fun and catching fish.

How do you change the world? One kid at a time! Take a kid fishing as much as possible and you just might make a difference far beyond anything you could imagine. At the very least you can change one child’s life by being a mentor. I know someone did that for me. Thanks to my father, Jack Giles, and grandfather J. P. Nolen for mentoring me.

Call Mike Giles at 601-917-3898 or email mikegiles18@comast.net.