Why Fathers Should Take Their Sons Fishing

It's more than just a rod and reel

Fishing offers an opportunity for fathers and sons to form strong relationships through a meaningful activity. (Biba Kayewich)

The first time I went fly fishing with my father, I immediately hooked him through the finger. Neither of us knew what we were doing (obviously), and my first attempt at a cast ended with this minor bloodshed. We worked the hook out, after a bit, though, and no major damage was done.

We persevered with the fishing expedition—moving together unsteadily into this unknown realm of fly fishing, just as we waded forward into the cold, sun-striped, leaf-fringed, trout-haunted pools of the creek. We didn’t catch a single fish that outing. Or the next. Or the next.

Throughout that summer, perched inside a rusting red F-150, we wound our way on dusty country roads through the valleys and over the ridges of the Driftless Area in search of trout streams, most of which turned out to be overgrown, hopeless affairs. And when we did find suitable places to fish, the trout remained elusive.

There’s something almost archetypal about a father and a son hitting the water with rod and reel during the long, languid days of summer. Whether roving the shorelines of glittering lakes or negotiating the currents of muddy rivers in a fishing rig, men and boys have always spent their free time—and sometimes their careers—in pursuit of finned adversaries. Maybe that’s reason enough for the suggestion that fathers should take their sons fishing. Fishing is as old as human civilization itself. Prehistoric fishhooks carved from sea snail shells were discovered in a cave on the Japanese island of Okinawa in 2016.

But in addition to connecting us to our roots and millennia-old traditions, why should dads take their sons fishing? Let me offer a few key reasons.

Connecting With the Outdoors

In an age when teens spend an average of more than seven hours per day in front of screens, fishing provides a much-needed contact with reality and a break from the digital world. And, on the flip side, time in nature provides well-documented health benefits, including improved short-term memory, problem-solving, creativity, stress reduction, and feelings of well-being.

Building a Sense of Wonder

Beyond mere physical benefits, exposure to the raw beauty and power of the outdoors forms our minds and imaginations in a profound way. Such experiences humanize and ennoble us. Educator John Senior defended the need to foster this sense of wonder in our lives, which he defined as “the reverent fear that beauty strikes in us.”

There’s no replacement for the sense of peace, awe, and mystery that comes over you as the sky begins to sigh into a navy blue, stars emerge, and the night creatures begin to sing—and even though it’s too dark to cast any longer, you yearn to stay. This is food for the heart and the soul. In the words of Leon Bean, experiences of great open spaces “teach us to forget the mean and petty things of life.”

Training in Masculinity

The role that fathers play in instilling a healthy sense of masculinity in their sons is the subject of countless articles and books in itself. For our current purposes, it’s worth noting simply that fishing provides time for boys to study and imitate their father’s masculine behavior. Fishing specifically provides an excellent means for this kind of training since the act of searching for food in the wild is an inherently masculine act. Men should provide for others, and fishing is a very concrete, hands-on way to do that.

Healthy Food

We can’t ignore the obvious, practical benefits of fishing: delicious, fresh fish to be grilled over the campfire or fried on the stove back at home. Fish is loaded with nutrients such as protein, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins D and B2, calcium, iron, zinc, iodine, magnesium, and potassium. It helps support healthy heart and brain function. There’s a deep satisfaction in eating something you caught with your own hands and that you know is healthy and nourishing for your body and the bodies of your loved ones.

Fostering Relationships

Fishing offers an opportunity for fathers and sons to form strong relationships through a meaningful activity. (Biba Kayewich)

Shared, meaningful activities and the resulting memories build relationships between people, particularly men. Men, in my experience, are less likely to want to talk face-to-face with one another and unveil their deepest thoughts, fears, and hopes over coffee. But men do come to know and respect one another when they work side by side on some worthwhile goal. In such a case, the relationship is not the overt focus, which makes many men feel more comfortable with the situation.

But the relationship remains a, if not the, primary object of the time spent on the activity (just don’t say that to the other guys). And with the fishing (or other task) keeping the hands and eyes busy, the conversations—the real, meaningful, vulnerable ones—often follow.

Some of the most intimate and formative conversations with my father took place during those treks among the bluffs and up the streams in search of brook and brown trout. More than any other male connection, the relationship between son and father needs this opportunity for the real, essential talks to happen—the talks about future hopes and fears, about career and vocation, about girls, about past mistakes, about misunderstandings and forgiveness, about just being a man in the modern world.

I’m not sure what kept us going, my father and me, during that first summer in which we faced failure after failure out on the water. I guess it was some combination of the reasons outlined above. But I’m glad we stuck with it—and not just because we did, eventually, land our first trout that year. It took sweat, and fighting swarms of gnats as thick as disappointment, and even some blood. But it was worth it. We were learning to love a rewarding lifelong sport and forming a bond that has endured through all the uncertainties of life. It worked for us. It can work for other fathers and sons, too.