What Did it For You?

[sinkingtip]

Hi Guys - hot on the heels of my two minor classics ;D - "Fish Art" and "Superstitions" - I got to thinking about what exactly was the original catalyst for me personally in deciding that fish, fishing, fishy things and anything to do with fish was the way ahead - at what point and in what circumstances did I become "hooked"?.
Was it when, aged 5, I saw some"big laddies" guddling wild troot from a burn...or was it when my uncle Hamish took me down to Aberdeen fish dock one morning at 5am for a skek at the catches coming in (he had connections )...or was it fishing off a pier...looking in rockpools...the local tackle shop windee ? The list can go on and become romanticised to the point of nausea - but thats not the intention.

I'll lay my cards on the table - for me, aged 9, it was realising how easily I could wheech out decent sized sea or "broon troot's" on an upstream mepps from any one of a number of wee waters within my local 'manor' (we are going back here guys !) - classic stuff. By the age of 10 my game angling career had begun in earnest. No fishing uncles, grandfathers or family fishing history whatsoever - just me and an equally daft loon from across the street. No hill loch, spate burn or ornamental pond was left unexplored - mepps, bubble float and fly, the broon highlander and sometimes even the "baggy minnin".

But I guess THE major event for me, or at least the one that the history books will identify as having "crossed the final frontier", was the day (aged 13) that I breezed into a newsagents...reached for the top shelf (I was a big 13) with the full intention of perusing the shopkeepers splendid selection of 'nude books' only for my hand eye co-ordination to lapse momentarily at the sight of a free cast wallet being given away with each copy of T&S - went for the T&S instead and never looked back

Thats mine......what's yours.........??

[jkboy]

I started going trout fishing up the Tay with my dad from a young age and was never really bothered about salmon for a good few years. One day when the faither got a day ticket for salmon on the Ericht, I was about 10 I think and he took me along with him. Can't remember much about it apart from watchin him losing a big springer (seemed huge to me at the time when it jumped out the water). He hooked it on a flying c and played it for ages (45 mins + I think) when it ran out the pool; having followed it down the fish was nearly beat he said when suddenly the 18lb nylon broke. Needless to say he was gutted .

Anyhows thats probably the event that first got me semi - interested in salmon fishing. I reckon I was fully hooked when I took my first grilse a few years later on the fly from the Isla. Never looked back since.

[greenalert]

Many years ago when just a loon used to fish at Torry docks with a hand line & spinning lure, whirling & whirling it round & then letting it go
Then progressed to a spinning rod my uncle took back from Hong Kong, he was in the merchant navy

Went trawling out of Aberdeen after that & got a passion for the sea

Came ashore & joined the Oil Industry & went offshore again!

Bought a 25ft fishing yawl & fished for cod to resale in Aberdeen Bay in my time off(locals will recall the boats which were moored downstream of Victoria Bridge on the River Dee

Then just stopped everthing & played golf for years

Then a mate of mine took me out for a day spinning on the Don

Enjoyed it but seen some guys fishing the fly & thought I fancy that

Bought a cheap fly fishing kit & went to one of the local trout lochs

That was it - hooked

Then decided I wanted to try this salmon fishing lark, bought a 13ft rod, reel etc and went for it on the Don

That was about 3 years ago & now am totally obsessed with it as my wife says - true!

Wish I had took it up 40 years ago

You cannot beat just being on a beautiful spot on the river even if not catching fish

[salmoseeker]

For me it started with trout, catching a rising fish on the Dean (Isla tributary) on a greenwell spider aged 8. My Dad was worming for trout, caught nothing and couldn't believe I got a fish. I'll never forget seeing that fish rise to my fly and the feel of hooking it. For many years after that it was happy days chasing (and more often releasing) wild brownies on Tay, Tummel, Isla, Ericht and Dean.

Now sadly (and happily) I chase Salar, mostly because of the event described by jkboy; that was a good fish lost, but a manic 10 year old commentator running up and down the bank hardly helps a man land his fish. And that wasn't the only time!:/

Tight lines

[rennie]

Always spent school holidays in Coupar Angus and one year at the age of 7ish was allowed to fish the Tullypowerie burn whilst visiting friends,crawling about on hands and knees drowning worms caught a brownie of almost 1lb.Had it fried in mucky fat and covered in porridge oats for brecky,delicious.Subsequent years every spare minute was spent in the burn at Coupar Angus and when I got old enough I was let loose on the Isla then slowly further afield.Those early years walking home with fish in the bag fresh tablet in my pocket(eh careful not that stuff) light fast disappearing bats swooping,swallows screeching,wellies full of water covered in nettle stings, mince pie supper at the chippy with irn bru,strewth wish I was still there and thats before Salmon.

[waddington]

Hello All
I'm new to the forum apart from a minor question in the 'Tackle Talk' section which Salar76 was good enough to answer. I fish mainly on the Tywi in west wales.
It all started for me with my Dad taking me on trips to fish the small brooks of the Brecon Beacons in South Wales. In those days I fished the worm and I can well remember the sheer excitement of each little tug as a trout took. As I entered my teens I progressed into fly fishing with sea trout becoming my principle focus with hopefully a salmon or two in the autumn. I look back with fond memories of starting out in game fishing and can't help wondering, despite the fact I was bait fishing, if the brooks did not offer a better apprenticeship than the small stocked still waters which novices seem to flock to today.

Dad also introduced me to sea fishing and I still look forward to my annual bassing trip to Cornwall. Setting me on my way to a lifelong passion for fishing is definitely the best gift the old man ever gave me.

Congratulations to all on a friendly forum packed with useful information.

Best Wishes
Waddington

[ibm59]

Bill Currie's writing way back in the early seventies. Reading his stuff made me focus all my misguided energies ( pike, sea ) onto game fishing and fly in particular. He really is that good a writer. B.

[Fruin]

Spent most of my primary school years building dens, making bows and arrows, and thigh deep in water (shorts and sannies - not waders). All tasks were carried out with my mates down the local burn. Went from, baggie nets, to hand lines, to bait, to fly. Then decided it was time to start fishing loch and river.... and sea... sand pit.... more burns.... and so on.

I couldn't get enough, all the way through secondary school. Then I found the guitar, and realised that strumming a guitar and swivelling your hips, was a better leg opener than smelly waders and a fishing rod

However, a visit to a wee loch with one of my old trout rods, during a weekend away with the woman that was to become my wife, got a few trout, and me, hooked again. The initial quote is "It's so nice to see you doing something as peaceful as that darling". This changed later that year to "Yir no going fuishing again, are yi?". It wasn't long before I was back in pursuit of salar, and long may it continue.

[salmonscotty16lb]

probably about 8-9 years old and seeing a 26lb salmon my uncle caught! "I'm int some of that" the young scotty thought but the auld deer had others "no fishing until u can swim little man"!
still remember the whole going to the pool every Saturday and Sunday until i could keep my head up and earned my first rods a fly rod and a Argos bait rod. bait first caught a perch in my first few trips and bad rainbow trout still keen! wanting more i started casting on the grass from getting home from school until dark! i still remember the flash as my fist trout hit my woodcock and green! hooked on fishing the fly now:D
the most important part for me was when i was maybe 14 so cool as you are in with a bad crowd coming home drunk:O Auld man kicked 7 shades out of me and promised to take me fishing every weekend if i kept off the cider so a fisher was born:D

[sinkingtip]

Hi Fruin - I can relate to most of that - especially the bows and arrows bit ! Nice post. Cheers.

[wilbert]

My uncle took me fishing when I was about 5 or 6 and his friend caught a huge salmon on the Earn, I have no idea how big the fish was but it was about the same size as me at the time. The next year it was coming round to my birthday and I was looking through the Argos catalogue and spotted a cheep fiberglass D.A.M. spinning rod £9.99 including the reel and some tackle so decided that this is what I wanted for my birthday. Later that year I caught my first fish a perch of about 1lb and went to catch my first trout off the river. At the age of 8 or 9 I started fly fishing and by the age of 12 I fished for anything and everything. After discovering what certain girls would do at age 15 fishing got put on the back burner until I was 19 and could resist the temptation to wet a line no longer. I took up salmon fishing seriously when I was about 22 and bought my first double hander about 2 years later. I now fish the fly 99% of the time and have caught every type fresh water fish in the UK except a Barbel, Grass Carp and a Zander but hope to change this some time.

[pertempledog]

A small tale but I am proof of "Nature" not "Nurture" and can be used in arguments with anti's who claim that us blood sportsmen have become what we are because we have been encouraged/seduced/brainwashed or whatever by those around us - generally at a tender age, perhaps by growing up with fishers, shots, hunters or similar.

My parents, and their parents and indeed their parents before them were all townies (Weegies and Buddies many of them) through and through. As a result my parents did not have an ounce of country sport blood running in their veins and never, as far as I know, caught, shot or chased anything - ever.

But I had a granny who loved to golf and she introduced them to a small highland hotel with a small golf course and as a result we visited. There, and I can still see it in my mind, there was always a split cane trout rod set up in the porch, resplendent with a team of flies. At the age of five I begged to be allowed to go fishing with this rod - why I have no idea. Eventually to shut me up my father took a garden cane, tied some gut to the end, pulled a feather out of his pillow and tied it on with thread and then coloured it red with my mothers nail varnish. He then walked me up the burn to a tiny pool and sat me on a rock where I dabbled the "fly" for a while. Naturally I never caught a fish, but I did see a trout that day lying in shallow water - it just lay there until bursting with excitement I scared it off. It was not until I was thirteen that I got the chance to live somewhere where I could start to learn to fish but I never forgot that day and it undoubtedly started my fishing career.

As a post script about three years later I begged to go shooting. It is my second favorite sport.....