How did you get ''into'' fishing?

[mark brailsford 2]

I am interested in the way people got into fishing.
I started when I was about 6 when my uncle Colin used to take me ''tadpoling'' and ''newting'' down at the local pit lagoon (the best fishing for miles I have been told!) It started me on the road to my fascination with aquatic life and ultimately to fishing (it was my uncle Colin that bought me my first rod...a little six foot job!) It still gladdens my heart when I think back to those wonderfull days...must be suffering from a mid life crisis!!!!

mark

 

[agamemnon]

my dads best friend taught me all i know about fishing from about age 6 he took pitty on me using my mums washing line prop and took my down the river thame and started a great passion that took over my entire life until i was around 18 and still plays a massive part in my life today

 

[waggy]

My Grandad took me and a cousin, both aged three, in the boxes of a carrier bike, to the local Keadby canal. I think our Mothers had told him to drown us but he taught us to fish instead. I'm still going strong but my cousin never took to it.

 

[newbieneil]

2 of my mates have always fished and although they had stopped going as much i begged them to take me one day as i`d overheard them planning a day somewhere,first time i went i borrowed a rod,they set up a waggler for me and my first fish was a small tench...second trip was a baptism of fire on the river severn at bewdley for barbel...again using a borrowed rod,the three of us fished maggot feeders and i caught a few small roach and my mates caught a chub or two.That was about 5-6 years ago now and i have been hooked ever since! ...i still go with one of these mates on most of my fishing trips and although he showed me the very basics i do feel like ive taught myself from books ,magazines and from the web.

 

[sam vimes]

I just fancied it for some reason. No one in my family is an angler but my dad had a period where he'd enjoyed tying flies but didn't actually use them. A friend had tried, unsuccessfully, to get him to fish. He did inherit some old tackle from someone. It included a Sealey Black Arrow 2 rod and Abu 505 reel. I was given these rather than anyone going to any expense. My Grandparents had a caravan right next to the river Lune, a small Tees tributary. It was a safe place for an eight year old to wander up and down the river to my heart's content. I floundered around without any instruction other than what I gleaned from books and magazines. I caught a lot of minnows until I thought to use a minnow as bait and caught myself a brown trout. From that start I ended up going with school friends and have never given up since.

 

[chub_on_the_block]

My dad took me to the Thames at Pangbourne when i was about 10 and i caught a small skimmer on a quill float. He didnt fish anymore, and was pretty ill so couldnt take me much. Also remember fishing Thames at Canbury Gardens about that time when i first used a leger. I think it took me about four years before i caught anything that needed a landing net. By then i was going everywhere on the Thames I could get to by train or bus, as my dad had died. I was also invited along by friends from school whose dads would take us by car - luxury. First netter fish - a 2Ib chub on the Mole at Hersham in the snow when me and a mate went fishing on a day when we turned up at school to be sent home because the boiler wasnt working. Great day!. Fishing was everything until i got to about 19 years old. Its been fits and starts ever since, depending on how much time i have to devote to it.

 

[XIII13]

When I was 14 my dad thought it would be a good idea for us to do something together and we agreed on fishing.

We had no idea where to start, but a trip to the local tackle shop resulted in a shared 12ft fibreglass rod, mitchell 300, 6lb line, s16 hooks, float assortment, shot and a pint of maggots (ledgering wasn't mentioned and was something we discovered later).

The local river was the Wharfe where we caught minnows and Gudgeon for the first few trips, but after a bit of research plus some help from anglers on the bank, one day we caught a couple of trout that actually bent the rod. The rest is history.

STEVE

 

[Jamesy]

Dad started taking us (four lads) as a result of my parents divorce, he'd never bothered before that. He must've thought that if he was paying maintenance he should possibly spend more time with us. The only good thing he ever gave us...I'm not bitter...??!!

 

[barbelboi]

It was my dad. He was a keen angler and having the Lea at the bottom of our garden in Broxbourne until the age of four fishing was the natural thing to do. At the age of four moved to Ruislip in 1952 and with the Colne and Frays on our doorstep, together with the Colne Valley pits I didn’t need much more inspiration. I had the same pleasure teaching my son to fish, unfortunately my father passed away soon after my son was born so never went fishing as a threesome.
Jerry

 

[S-Kippy]

I was about 10. Went round my best mates house one afternoon and he and his Dad had all their fishing gear out having just got back from a trip. I was fascinated and became such a nuisance that they eventually took me along. Thames at Laleham in January & we never had a bite but that was it...I was infected.

First fish a skimmer from the cutting @ Little Britain [Jerry...you will know the place] but it was not until 3-4 years later that I had a fish over 1lb in weight.I've taken both my kids fishing & they've enjoyed it but shown no inclination to take it up. I'm kind of glad in a way....it means fishing remains "mine" and though the family do show a bit of interest its really only politeness.Mrs S has long since accepted that this is what I do so I'm left alone to get on with it which is nice.

 

[andreagrispi]

Went camping with the scouts in Scotland - saw a bloke catch an 18lb salmon and I was hooked.

 

[Poshpaul (Angling Trust and PaSC)]

No history of angling in my family - unless you count my dad's two broom handles and a baited line across the creeks around Pompey when he was a kid.

It started as a youngster when I would watch the anglers in Cassiobury Park, Watford (River Glade?). But it was the move into rural Kent that did it...there were some keen anglers in my secondary school...and I lived close to the Medway and a wonderful mysterious pool called "Witches Wood".

 

[pellethead15]

@ Mark,good thread....i was brought up on a country estate,dad and grandad were gamekeepers so shooting and fishing dogs and horses were all i knew.from a young age i could strip a shotgun down and clean it and load cartridges.In the evenings we all fished the lily covered lake for anything that swam,i still fish it now and again just for the memories evoked.I put away the guns for life but will have a rod and reel and a quill float in my coffin with me.

 

[Bob Hornegold]

My mates Dad from two doors up took us to Connaught Waters Fishing, when were very young.

The Rest is History ?

Bob

 

[xenon]

was taken out first by my Dad. Pretty daunting as a 12 year old as Dad was at that time a serious match angler, so this was all done PROPERLY. Still, that grounding has stood my in good stead ever since.

 

[Jeff Woodhouse]

Dad took me on mackerel trips a couple of times and we fished off Brighton pier once for some dabs, but other than that didn't do anything at home other than being fascinated by these flashes of silver in the local cut. Unbelievable seeing as it was one of the most polluted around and full of old cars, paving, and prams etc. a sort of aquatic waste dump.

That was until I got to secondary school and me, Dog Ogden and Piggy Western got ourselves some canes and line and hooks, then the magic happened. Never looked back.

 

[904_cannon]

I grew up 'fishing' in Balne Lane beck over the wall from my Granny's back garden; usual stuff sticklebacks etc in a net. At about 8/9 I then swapped an almost round rugby ball for an old cane rod and C/P reel with a lad much older (but softer) than me and started fishing the local stillwaters; Half Moon, New Miller Dam and (poaching) the Police gravel pits in the Wakefield area - no fish in the Calder or canals then.
If anyone can remember old Fred Alexanders tackle & pet shop in Lower Kirkgate, Wakefield, I bought my first maggots from him. I will always remember him asking did I want them wet or dry? I finished up with a great seething sticky mass of the things. I always asked for them dry after that first time.

Twelve years later I finished up living almost next door to old Fred and his little cottage off Milnthorpe Lane, Sandal. His old dog took a real liking to my wife's leg

 

[terry m]

At about 10 years old, a friend who was a year younger offered to take me fishing, we went to where the Avon and Nadder converge at Salisbury and I caught one or two grayling. I was hooked....

But for a break when I first got married and all finances (and I mean all) went into our first house, I have continued unabated for 40 years.

 

[Sean Meeghan]

I started as a young boy on the river Moy in Ireland whilst staying on my uncle Martin's farm. We fished for the pot, but I bought a rod on the way home, a lovely white fibreglass jobbie with red trimmings and a blue reel. I then carried on on the upper Soar in Leicestershire where we lived at the time.

There's a story on here called "How it All Began", but I think it got lost in the move.

 

[Simon K]

I have absolutely no recollection what sparked my interest. Certainly wasn't anyone else since I knew no-one who fished til many years later. I've asked my parents and they don't recall either!

I do remember my first 6ft rod/reel combo from (I think Woolies) age about 9?, threading on a float, shot and maggot-baited hook and sitting on the pavement at the Eagle Pond in Wanstead with a lovely great birds nest of line engulfing the centrepin, but rapt with attention on my float all afternoon.

No, I didn't catch.