Appreciate all the kind comments. I'll tell the rest of the story because it was really fun. That little pond has a submerged rock ledge with a pretty steep dropoff under it that always holds fish. I had little man rigged up with a dropshot rig with a circle hook, and I was flinging a wooly bugger with my 3wt fly rod.
I caught a little baby bass and was stripping him in to the bank when
BAM! That big bass ambushed him from the dropoff! Hit him so hard it knocked the baby bass off my hook and he got away. Very next cast I hooked onto a little bluegill.
WHACK! the bass hit him the same way, knocking him off the hook as well. I cast again right in front of the dropoff, but the fish wanted nothing to do with my little wooly bugger.
So I grabbed little COFF's line, ripped the weight off the bottom of the dropshot, and pitched the little plastic minnow 6 ft out in front of the ledge. I gave the rod to little COFF and he started reeling. Being an easily-excitable 4 year old boy, his natural reeling motion includes lots of jerking around, so that minnow had the action of a fluke.
POW!! Fish was on and hook was set. I immediately had to grab the rod to take the weight of the fish. Little COFF fought him for a few minutes and I was terrified the whole time because it was only 6# line on a crappy little spincast reel with no drag. As soon as he got him close to the bank I dove down and lipped that sucker to make sure he didn't break off.
All together, it was probably the most exciting 10 minutes of fishing I've ever experienced. As for Little COFF, well about 5 minutes later he was skipping rocks and mickey mouse was laying in the grass!
He sure was excited to call grandpa when he got home though!