It’s All About the Kids

By Chasten Whitfield

I woke up one early morning, got the boat loaded and ready to go fishing, and headed out to the Skyway bridge to get bait. This particular morning, however, was tougher than other mornings, so I made a call to one of my friends who owns Two Scoops Bait Company who hooked us up with bait.  Back to the boat ramp to pick up our amazing fishermen David who is 13 years old and has Down syndrome. By his first birthday he’d already had several hospital stays. Surgeries to correct a heart defect, a bowel disorder, and various less serious medical diagnoses. Over the years he has struggled with sensory and behavioral issues, but overall, he is in good health. By looking at him today, you’d never know how much he has dealt with in his short life.  But today, all he had to deal with is fighting fish!  After a short boat ride, we got to our first fight and chummed up some trout. We were only in about 5 feet of water on a grass flat and we took out a white bait hooked it in the nose and cast wherever the trout are busting. He landed a couple small trout. We got to our second spot along some mangroves and looked under the mangroves and there were about thirty 20 inch to 24 inch snook sitting under all the mangroves so we anchor up current of them and chum a little more.  The snook started eating and we got David on some really fiesty snook. We were using a 2/0 Mustad circle hook so all David had to do was real as fast as he could.  As soon as we got a snook up to the boat, he didn’t know what it was but he knew it was different from the other fish he was catching earlier because this one had a black stripe on it.

Sometimes we get so caught up in wanting to catching big fish, we forget how much fun it is to catch little ones.  After an amazing couple of hours watching David catch snook, we had to head back to the boat ramp, however, the smile on his face said it all! Thanks for reading my story.

Check out his video on YouTube chastenation taking David fishing.

Chasten’s mission is to help kids of all ages, especially girls, become comfortable anglers while teaching positive life skills, thoughtfulness, doing what’s right for the right reasons, and choosing to stay active outdoors. It’s not about what you look
like or outside appearance, what matters is what’s inside.