My first fish was a brown trout, hauled from a highland burn, after my father instructed me to lower a worm into the white foaming water below a waterfall. This was my introduction to angling and the bug has stayed with me for over 40 years. How did you get started?

My best mate invited me fishing to a small day ticket water fishing for a few hours with him.I caught a tench of about 7oz's and a few small rudd.I loved just being there and watching birds eating maggots from the box just next to me.This is when i got the fishing bug.We went float fishing a few other times until one day he hooked a carp.It was around fourteen lbs but massive to me then.He lost it at the end of the fight but that was the thing that drove me from a weekend hobby to an obsession.After float fishing came sea fishing then carp fishing,pike fishing,fly fishing,river fishing and lure fishing.

my first fish well six all came up at once mackrel all on a line of six feathers in strangford lough n.ireland on my uncles mates catermeran i was about 9 at the time and from every summer on till i was 15 we would go fishing for mackeral on strangford lough .and then my freinds back in england took me fishing on a local pond for roach perch ect i will never forget the first time my mate showed me a six 16 hook i nearly fell about laughing "what are we gonna catch on that " i asked . since then i have never sea fished since but hope to go back to strangford one day and catch some more mackeral

I went river fishing with my best mate when we were about 10. I didn't have any tackle so took along one of those bright orange crabbing lines that you buy from the seaside.

Needless to say, I never caught a thing, but thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so that, 25 years later, I'm still fishing.

Got to go and lie down now as this makes me sound really old !!!!

My first fish was a crucian carp in my local pond next to a railway line and a tip!
What I love about fishing is that even at its worst there is always the wildlife or the scenery to look at. Beats standing on a train platform waiting for numbers!

Mine was a Ballan Wrasse of the rocks at Prawle Point Devon. I thought it was a foreign fish at the time and it took me days to find out what it actually was. Agh the days of youth.

cant remember my first fish or my fish carp really, its something I`ve always done, I think we caught newts and things first in nets and then sort of progessed from that, I can remember catching newts and stickleybacks on canes with string and a worm tied on the end, sometimes you would catch two of the blighters, one at each end of the worm

I think I may have progress to small perch and Ruffe after that

do remember catching a bullhead once, been fishing with a few of the lads, tank ariel rods cast out, fighting on the bank and throwing bricks at the mill windows opposite (as you do), when it was time to pack up, on winding in the tackle, hey presto, a bullhead on the end (not the most conventional way of catching Bullhead granted)?

The first fish I ever caught were two Roach from Tooting Bec Common Pond.
It took my friend Bob and I 3 visits to catch our first fish and we both caught almost identical fish.

In reality there were rather stunted little specimens but to us at the time they were the most magnificent fish on the planet.

Some 45 years later I still delight in catching even small fish.

One of these days I intend to go back to some of those first places I fished as a nipper like; the Tooting Pond, Longwater at Hampton Court, the Mole at Hampton Court and Canbury Gardens in Kingston.
Just for the fun and the nostalgia.

My first fish was a small coalfish(or Billet as they were called in those parts) from Scarborough peer whilst staying with my gran when I was about eight.

A few casts later I caught a Weaver.I was so frightened of its poisonous spines I had to get my mum to unhook it for me!!Love beyond the call of duty!

It was a little while before I got my first coarse fish - a little Roach from Roundhay Park in Leeds.I soon got quite proficient in catching them on maggots suspended a foot or so beneath a plastic shot box - deadly!!We hadn't heard of bubble floats.

I still have photos of me with both fish & of all my fish pictures they are the ones I most treasure(if not just for the tight adidas t-shirt & afro!!)

Now let me get this straight.

There are pictures of you Nigel, with an Afro'hairstyle???????

This I have GOT to see :-)

Peter,in mitigation, I was only eight & it was the seventies.

Shame I havn't still got the t-Shirt as it would be a collectors item by now.

PS got your mail.Reply on its way.

it was an absolutely enormous perch of about 3 oz an it took me nigh on 5 years to catch the thing too from the bottom lake at langold lake nottinghamshire.

I can't really remember my first fish, but I do know where I first fished.

I was the stream that runs through the village of Stillingfleet in North Yorkshire.

It is only 10ft wide and a couple of feet deep but in places it was stacked full of chub, roach and rudd upto around 8oz plus a few that could push a pound (chub).

It was ideal - I could walk to it in 10 mins from my parents home and when the fish were in the mood, you could make the water boil.

Even now I still pop down there with a travel kit for an hour or so when I get the time.

The seed was probably planted by mackerel trips on holiday in Devon, but I do remember bringing a brown trout out of a highland river on a spinner when I was 9 or 10. After that, we moved to the fens and I wanted to start fishing as all my new mates did. My dad didn't (he used to go with my uncle when they were kids but wasn't too keen) so I had to pick it up as I went along. Loved it though and now, 17 years later I'm still at it.

I suspect my first fish caught on my own clumsily tied and set up tackle was probably a rudd, roach or perch from a local village pond. Can't remember which as we used to catch loads, but I still remember the feeling of being down by the pond, catching roach, rudd, very small carp and small tench on a float in the lillies during the summer. 1/4 pint of maggies and a sandwich and it felt like heaven. No wonder I still have a fondness for lilly choked ponds full of tench at dawn!!

My first fish (or first 100 fish) was at Carsfad, near Dumfries, where I was catching brown trout parr at the side of my dad when I was about 4yrs old. Caught using a stick with some line attached to it, a small hook and a matchstick for a float. Also caught a newt on that day also! Dads mates were that impressed with the number of fish I managed to catch, they bought me my first fishing trophy!

Have been hooked ever since.

My first fish was a stickle back caught from a mill lodge in Accrington with a bent pin and a worm, I’d be about nine years old. What I do remember is one day after being told not to go to the mill lodge by my dad, I sneaked off with my mates and completely oblivious of the fact that my dad had followed me, was fully engrossed in the act when all of a sudden I was lifted through the air and chased all the way home by my dad, and every time I stopped for a rest I got clipped around the back of the head. Never stopped me from fishing though and my first proper fish was a little perch caught on a proper rod and line form another abandoned mill lodge.

My first fish - a 6oz Dab caught in the River Mersey at Egremont, Wallasey. I had an old fibreglass rod that my Grandad had found. I needed 6oz lead to hold the bottom in the Mersey. That alone bent my rod in half. Trying to lift out the 6oz lead + 6oz dab felt like a ton weight. I was ever so chuffed.

My first coarse fish was a crucian taken at Wirral Country Park lakes. Same rod as above. Had a take on the drop. I thought something was wrong with my float as it hadn't cocked. It was a huge fish of at least 2oz.

That was 30 years ago.