I found a couple of hours to take Elia out today after a few carp. hit one of my favorite spots and the fish were active, but mostly cruising around, not a lot of feeders. elia rode in the backpack and we walked slowly around the pond until I finally spotted a feeding fish about 30 ft out. Generally on this pond, that is too far to hook up. I use a small size 14 hares ear (no bead or legs) and it is just too tough to detect the strike from that distance. elia told me to cast anyway by pulling my hat back against my head really tight (at least I took that to mean..."dad, cast at that fish!") I lined up the cast and made a good one...Dropped the fly about 2 ft in front of him, and about a foot past him. I made one quick strip, and he picked his nose up and eased forward. I didn't see his head move again, or gills flare, but the way he had looked, then just slowly moved toward the fly made me suspicious, so I made a quick strip set and fish on! I was fishing my 4 wt in this pond (lots of small fish) and he gave me a great battle before coming in...About a 5 lb fish. on the way out I checked another little pond across the street that I'd never fished. Right away I spotted two nice fish in the shallows, just a rod length away. I dropped the same fly right in front of them and immediately hooked up...This was a better fish, around 9lbs! Great afternoon!of course I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I went to see how highway cone was doing. Found him, threw flies at him, and he laughed his little fishy laugh and swam off. I did hook one nice fish on that same hare's ear, but he broke me off on the hook set...I think the tippet was frayed from fighting the last fish...They do rub that tippet on their fins while running! Great day with elia, not only did we catch a few fish, and chase highway cone around, but we saw a bunch of baby geese. Now elia is a smart little thing, and she can say baby (she says all kinds of words) and she can also say geese (whenever she sees one she goes "honk...honk"). She knows a lot of words, but today she saw the small geese with the big geese and pointed at them and said "baby geese." like I said. It was a great day.