Come join us as we set out with a pair of Flycraft boats into some incredible waters with Eli, his daughter Isla and son Axle. We see beautiful landscapes, find some creepy creatures, laugh and play on the river, all while Isla ends up catching her biggest ever brown trout.
Check it out:
Transcript:
Eli: When it came to raising kids, I knew that the way everyone else kind of did it around me wasn't that way I wanted to do it. I knew that I wanted my kids to have the same experiences that I did.
When we got started to try and have a family, it took us a long time. We kind of had a parenting style of, we were kind of older, seven, eight years by ourselves. And so it was a little bit different where we had our kids and they became our best friends. We didn't have a lot of help, so they were always with us.
And so once we did go on dates where we did things alone, we always just missed our kids. So we knew we wanted our kids to be a big part of our lives. So we thought what was the best way to give our kid experiences or to make them well-rounded and it was through experiences. So we kind of took things a different style. Instead of putting money in a college fund like everyone else would do, we go and have experiences and those experiences usually take place in nature.
What's been really amazing is we've seen each kid grow differently and they're just a kinder, sweeter. They're a different version of themselves when they're doing these things out in nature. And we've seen our kids grow so much that we've wanted to do more and more and more and more. And so it was worth it to us for our time to do that.
And from what I can tell is we've gotten kind of different. Our kids are just normal kids, but they've kind of gotten different set of skills already than most kids we see. That's not saying anything bad about anybody else, but it's just because of these experiences and really pushing their limit. They've done incredible things. And that's one thing, out when we're biking or fishing or hiking or we're doing stuff out in nature that are hard, you see that when you give a kid a hard task that most times we say, oh, they're too young to do that. But when you give the kid a hard task, they can respond to it actually more than you'll think. So that's kind of been our thing is just kind of put our kids in stressful situations and watch them grow.
Yeah, so we've been fishing some waters right here in the middle of October. So things are really starting to turn on for the streamer fishing and we're in kind of a weird lunar cycle. So we've been having really good days, really. And then weird days, these last few days were awesome, in my opinion.
This is why I fish these rivers to have a chance of catching really big fish. And what we do during this time of year mostly is throw streamers. And that's because we enjoy that style of fishing. We love that style of fishing and the reactions, the fish that we catch.
We're always looking for a new personal best, which Isla was able to do. It is a little tough. We had a little bad luck. I actually a lot of bad luck. The worst bad luck that I've had on this river so far. But Isla caught her big fish, so that was the coolest thing in the world to me. And Axel was paddling and all of us did together. So it was super, super, super special.
Isla: Mom, I just caught my record. Can I tell how big he is? 22 and a half. Mom, can I tell you something? Actually, Axel put me on a fish all by himself. Love you. Bye.
Eli: And then today we got out early because we had some really bad wind. And when we get wind, and that's another thing is putting your kids in circumstances where it's like they can push themselves but they don't hate it. And so today we just had a bad case of wind.
Because of our communication and both of us learning how to communicate with each other, we've gotten to a point now and Axle too, both of them because of fishing and because of mountain biking. I need to know when they're telling me the truth. If they're really tired, they're really gassed. And I've learned because of how they tell me. And so today I got to a certain point where I'm thinking, I want to catch more fish. I don't care about the wind. And she's like, "dad, I'm done. I can't row anymore. I can't fish anymore. The wind is too bad."
And I think being in baseball and seeing so many kids get pushed by their dads, and maybe I been guilty a little bit in fishing, but I definitely wasn't in baseball.
If you push 'em too hard, they're not going to want to do it.
So there's that fine line. Most of the time as a parent that can be frustrating because especially if you live to do something like fish, like I do. But what's happened is because of a lot of hard periods, we've abled now to get Isla and Axle fishing where we're having so much fun every single outing. And the communication has been great. And so the last few days were good. I pushed her a little hard yesterday, pushed 'em both a little hard yesterday. But we had a great day and had a lot of fun. And even when we had these, the very end of the day when I'm thinking about I'm kind of mad that we're not fishing still, and she looks at me and is like, "Hey, I had so much fun and I love just sitting here rowing with you." And it makes you get a higher perspective of what's important. And when you see that, it's pretty cool,
...What am I doing? What am I doing that that kid just gets at my heart differently than anybody else.
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