Fly Fishing with Kids on the South Platte

My son caught the same bug I did, which is either a sign I’m a great dad or just a very persuasive one. He’s been coming to the water with me since he was old enough to stay quiet near a river, and now he asks when we’re going back before we’ve even made it home from the last trip.

Getting there took some patience on my end, the right setup on his, and more than a few days that taught me exactly what not to do. So here’s the whole thing — the water, the gear, the mistakes, all of it — for getting a kid into fly fishing in Colorado without souring them on it before they start.

The one rule under everything else: your job isn’t to make a fly fisher today. It’s to make the water feel like a good place to be. Do that, and the fly fisher shows up on their own.

Start smaller than the South Platte

If your kid is little — say under 7 or 8 — the South Platte is not where I’d start. Our tailwater trout have a PhD in tippet and they did not get it being forgiving. A six-year-old learning to fish deserves to catch fish, not to absorb the hard lessons of a technical tailwater on day one.

For the littlest anglers, the best Colorado fly fishing isn’t fly fishing at all yet. It’s a stocked pond, a friend’s ranch water, or a small high-country creek full of naive brookies that’ll eat a bushy dry the second it lands. No current to read, no spooky fish, no thirty-foot drift. Just a bobber or a dry, a bite, and a kid losing their mind with joy. That’s the whole goal: get them hooked on the bite before you ask them to learn anything.

Match the water to the age

When they’re ready for the South Platte, pick the section to fit them.

Deckers is the right place to start. The access is easy — drive in, walk fifty feet, you’re fishing. No 1.3-mile hike over rock. There are shallow, slow seams where a kid can wade without the current trying to take them, and there are enough willing fish that an indicator actually goes under. That visible feedback — bobber dips, kid sets, fish pulls back — is the thing that creates a fly fisher. Everything else is downstream of that one moment.

Cheesman Canyon is not a kids’ section. The hike alone punishes young legs, the wading is technical and uneven, and the fish are selective enough to frustrate grown adults. Save it for when your kid can wade confidently without your hand on their arm.

The Dream Stream at anything but low flows is also a no — hip-deep water in open meadow with real current. Beautiful, productive, and not for someone still learning to read a river.

Don’t sleep on ice fishing

Here’s the one almost nobody tells you: ice fishing might be the single best kid fishing there is. I take my son out on Eleven Mile Reservoir every winter and it checks every box a kid wants checked.

There’s no casting to learn — you drop a line down a hole. There’s a heated shelter when little hands get cold. You can drag the kid out across the ice on a sled, which to a four-year-old is the best part of the day before a single fish is caught. And when a tip-up flag pops, it’s instant, obvious drama — the flag’s the bobber, except it’s a flag, and kids lose it. Trout, kokanee, and pike all come through the ice out there, and a kid hauling a fish up through a hole in a frozen lake is a memory that sticks.

Dress them in more layers than you think, keep the sessions short, and bring snacks like it’s your job. (It is.)

The gear that actually works

Rod. A 9-foot 5-weight is fine for a kid 10 or up who can already cast a little. For younger kids, go shorter and lighter — a 7’6” or 8’ 3- or 4-weight is far easier to manage. The Echo Base Kit and the Orvis Clearwater 8’6” 4-weight are the go-to starter outfits that don’t make the casting feel broken.

Do not buy the $60 sporting-goods combo. The line won’t turn over, the reel won’t hold backing cleanly, and the whole thing feels wrong to a kid who has no idea what fly fishing is supposed to feel like. Spend $150–$200 on a real starter kit. The casting experience is the difference between “this is fun” and “this is frustrating,” and a kid can’t articulate which one they’re feeling — they just quit.

Strike indicator. Big and bright. A Thingamabobber in pink or orange that a kid can spot at thirty feet while they’re also watching a bird, a cloud, and the guy fishing downstream. The subtle little dip an experienced adult catches is completely invisible to a child. Give them something obvious.

Two-fly nymph rig. A bead-head pheasant tail on a size 16 as the point fly and a small zebra midge as the dropper, under that indicator. Simple to tie on, hard to mess up, and it catches South Platte fish all day.

The stuff people forget: polarized sunglasses (eye protection from a wild hookset and they help a kid see fish, which is its own thrill), a net small enough for them to hold, sunscreen, and in summer just let them wet-wade in old sneakers instead of fighting them into waders.

Keep the day from going sideways

I’ve made every mistake on this list, most of them more than once. Let me save you the repeat performances.

Keep it short. Three hours is plenty for the first several trips. Four pushes into tired-and-cranky. Five is everyone’s bad memory. Fish hard for two, eat lunch on the bank, fish one more, and drive home with the day intact. The urge to stay when it’s going well is exactly the trap — leave while they still want more. That’s what makes them ask to come back.

Bring food they actually like. A hungry kid on a cold river is a miserable kid, and the misery is contagious. I pack more than I think we’ll need plus something they genuinely love. A good bankside lunch has rescued more trips than any fly I own.

Have a Plan B that isn’t fishing. Some days the fish don’t cooperate and the kid is done. Spotting trout in clear water, flipping rocks to hunt bugs, skipping stones — any of it keeps the day from ending in failure. The trip was never really about the fish anyway.

Set the expectation before you go. “We’re going to try this and see what happens” beats “we’re going to catch ten.” Our fish are selective; some days come easy, some take work. A kid who expected ten and got two is crushed. A kid who expected an adventure and caught two had a perfect day.

Mind the safety basics. Cold water is no joke in Colorado — know where the deep, fast water is and keep them out of it. A life jacket on the boat or hard water, every time. Sunscreen at altitude. And watch your own backcast around small heads.

Your only real job: the first fish

Everything above points at one thing: getting your kid to feel a fish on the end of the line. That first connection — indicator down, hookset, the fish pulling back — is the seed. Casting, fly selection, reading water all come later, if that moment happens early enough to matter.

So sacrifice your own fishing to build it. Put them in the best spot, tie on the most productive fly, watch the indicator for them and yell when it twitches. Make it stupid-easy. There are years of hard fishing ahead — the first day should be the easiest one they ever have.

The long game

You’re not raising a fly fisher in an afternoon. You’re stacking up good mornings until the water becomes a place they associate with you, with calm, with being trusted to do something real. Let them quit when they’re done. Don’t turn the one thing they think is fun into one more thing they’re getting corrected at. Some days the rocks and the snacks are the trip, and that’s not a failure — that’s the foundation.

The patience this takes is yours, not theirs. They’re allowed to be four. Slowing down to their speed turns out to be the entire point — on the water and everywhere else.

A few quick answers

What age can a kid start fly fishing? Around the water as soon as they can stay safe and content near it; actually working a rod usually clicks around 7–8. Before that, lean on ponds, creeks, and ice fishing where the bite comes easy and there’s nothing technical to learn.

Is ice fishing good for kids? It’s one of the best — no casting, a warm shelter, a sled ride out, and instant flag-popping action. Eleven Mile is a great one in Colorado. Just over-layer them and keep it short.

What’s the best South Platte section for a kid’s first trip? Deckers — easy access, safe slow water to wade, and willing fish that give the visual feedback that hooks a young angler. Skip Cheesman and the Dream Stream until they wade confidently on their own.

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My son caught his first fish on the Deckers flats — a size 16 bead-head pheasant tail under a bright orange Thingamabobber. He set the hook himself and it stuck. The fact that I spotted the strike and yelled before he did is a detail I have, to this day, kept to myself.

We were back two weeks later, which is the highest review a kid can give you. For the exact rig that put that first fish in the net, the South Platte nymph rigging guide has the full leader-to-fly breakdown.