Where did you learn your craft?

[fishplate42]

I assume most of you have been fishing since you were kids, even so, there must have been a learning curve.

I am probably unusual as I never fished as a kid. I was 58 when I decided to take up angling. I have no friends or relations who fish and had no one to ask for advice. Having never even held a rod before, let alone a live fish. I watched a Matt Hayes video on waggler fishing and I went to a commercial fishery in Kent armed with my few bits of cheap gear. The guy there told me to go and have a go. If I needed any help to ask.

I followed MH's video instructions and chucked the line and float out. I say 'chucked' as you can hardly call it a cast. Within a few second I had caught a fish, not just a little one either. It was a decent sized common carp, of maybe a couple of pounds. Nobody was as surprised as me, that was it I was hooked, just like the fish. I caught several more that day and have not stopped since.

Still got lots to learn...

Ralph.

 

[binka]

From the age of around five I often used to disappear down the local park stream for the day during the summer holidays and light nights, a far cry maybe from what is the accepted norm these days?

It was then a natural progression from net and bucket to rod and line, probably around the age of nine after I found my dad's fishing tackle gathering dust in his allotment shed.

I finally persuaded him to take me one Saturday afternoon and we sat beside a local lake as he showed me how to go on.

As many of the kids at school also fished we would meet afterwards in the lighter evenings down the local dam and fish together there but I was fortunate to have had two very important mentors who introduced me to rivers in the form of the Trent and the upper Witham at the age of around eleven.

One was a friend of my dad and the other was a chap who fished a local club water and took me under his wing, both very good anglers and both who I feel I owe such a lot to.

Having John Dean as the local tackle shop proprietor during my early teens and in the height of the Trent stick float era certainly didn't do any harm

 

[thecrow]

Started at 8 years old with no one in my family to show me the way, fished the local cut, quarries and clay holes, bait was always bread paste or worms only posh kids could afford maggots, didn't catch a fish for a full year but kept at it kept learning and still remember all the tackle I had when I started and the first fish I caught, is it strange that I can remember that but not what I did last week

 

[S-Kippy]

I started at about 8 or 9 when I went round my best mates house to find him with all his fishing gear laid out on the back lawn. Turned out his Dad was a keen angler and from then on I pestered and pestered to be taken. My first ever trip was to a high, coloured Thames at Laleham on a freezing January day when neither of us had a bite. I loved it.

It was the following summer before I got my first fish [a 10 oz skimmer on bread] and for the next few years learned my craft on the local canals [tench/crucian] lakes [tench/perch/brim] and rivers Colne & Thames [roach/dace]. I went through a very dour period around 12-13 when I couldn't seem to catch at all & nearly gave it all up but persisted and then it all seemed to click.

For the most part me and my mates just bumbled about pestering the life out of anybody we saw catching and trying to do what they said. I must say, for the most part, the blokes we asked were very, very patient and incredibly helpful. I think that was partly because they could tell we were serious and not just messing about.

 

[mikench]

Ralph i am very like you. I fished as a boy aged 11 to 14 or so ( until i discovered girls) and then gave up. I started sea fishing when a had a boat and when my son was a teenager and I still do but only in the med.

When i started coarse fishing in october 2015 i bought a cheap rod and reel from amazon, set off to a commercial and , sat on a caravaning chair, i began to float fish. I too was amazed when i caught several small carp which i now know where F1's. I too watched the re runs on TV and I read all the mags.

I have picked up an awful lot from this forum and keep practicing. I still enjoy it and am about to join a new club with too many waters available.

Long may it last! I just need to retire fully

 

[ian g]

I started when I was around 7 or 8 , nobody in my family was into fishing except for an uncle who I saw only occasionally . I still remember the magic moment when he taught me the lift method and I caught a crucian carp. I remember an older kid asking why I caught when he couldn't . Learning the ropes on the Severn of the last 15 years has been a revelation for me after only ever fishing small rivers.

 

[Graham Elliott 1]

No one in the family fished so no real idea why I started but memories of line tied to the finger at Pinner Memorial Park in the pond with eyes out for the Parkie. Probably aged 6 or 7.

But happy days from age around 11 cycling from Pinner to Croxley to fish the warm water from the paper mill in the Gade. Big perch caught on minnow from the canal overflow in the water that was full of loach bullheads and micro dace. The odd big chub and roach. Bream in the canal. (Now home to big carp)

From there along the railway to Ricki. Hemp bridge and the Aquadrome. Happy days. Perch in the v formed by the barges...watching perch chase the bait...and a first pike.

The secret canal bit down the road opposite the Ricki church and over the wall to mysterious waters.
Or behind the Church in a pool formed from the Colne full of huge pike in February.

From there to Chesham, poaching the Chess for rainbows under the road bridges and Latimer fishery... all sekf taught or gleaned from magazines.

Thence to the Kennet at 16 and a mentor I will always be thankful to. In the name of Roy Rogers a one time baliff at Wasing estate. 3 or 4 swan peacock quills overdepth. Holding back.

The rest is history...mine

 

[barbelboi]

I don’t remember life before fishing – my father was a fisherman, his father, their friends, my friends (often their sons). I remember well when most of the Colne valley pits were still working pits, some into the early 60’s, where you had the noise from the machinery across the water – these, together with the Colne, Kennet, Loddon and Lea at Broxbourne (where my father’s parents had a house backing onto the river) are my earliest memories.................

 

[S-Kippy]

Interesting....so far quite a few people seem to be the only anglers in their families. I am too....my cousin fishes but he lived in Lincoln [ still does] which is a bit too far on a pushbike even for a mad keen 10 year old. He did, however, take me down to a little brook when we were up on holiday one year and I caught my first ever spotty Herbert. Wonderful little bloke of about 6 ozs...butter yellow and covered in red spots.

 

[steve2]

Fishing for newts with worm tied to cotton in local ponds, (I think they were bomb craters). Went fishing with a group of friends they gave it up I never did.
More or less self taught from there apart from reading books.
My teacher always said I should read more but the books they wanted me to read held no interest. Give me a fishing book and I would read it cover to cover.
Can't understand why kids are still being forced to read Shakespeare.

 

[binka]

But happy days from age around 11 cycling from Pinner to Croxley to fish the warm water from the paper mill in the Gade.

That brings back memories of a different kind for me Graham.

Many years ago I used to do an awful lot of print for law firms, a lot of which was produced on a paper called Croxley Script.

Now I know how it got its name

 

[jon atkinson]

Fishing for newts with worm tied to cotton in local ponds, (I think they were bomb craters). Went fishing with a group of friends they gave it up I never did.
More or less self taught from there apart from reading books.
My teacher always said I should read more but the books they wanted me to read held no interest. Give me a fishing book and I would read it cover to cover.
Can't understand why kids are still being forced to read Shakespeare.

It was the Shakespeare catalogue for me when I was at school!

 

[fishplate42]

Ah! I remember him...

"To fish, or not to fish--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The blanks and bumps of outrageous fortune
Or to take rods against a sea of poles
And by opposing beat them."

Bert Shakespeare,
Essex




Ralph

 

[peterjg]

I asked my mum once - how old was I when I started to fish? She replied - as soon as you were old enough to hold a rod. My first rod was a 6ft one piece solid glass rod - I later tried (unsuccessfully) to make it into a bow!

My dad used to take mum, my sister and I to the Thames at Boveney, Penton Hook and Dorney Reach. Dad died when I was eight in 1962, I still have his rod in the loft.

A dear uncle and two cousins used to sometimes take me but really I just learnt the hard way and from books.

I used to spend days and days fishing the Stanmore Common ponds and years later caught a 1lb 14oz roach from there. Later I used to cycle or bus and train it to the GU canal at Perivale. Then I used to fish the river Colne at lot and adjacent pits. I caught my first carp (2lbs 10ozs) by accident while fishing for crucians in 1975. That little fish started 38 years of intense carp fishing in the Colne Valley. Now I fish mainly for roach in the Kennet.

Graham Elliot - all those waters you mentioned I know well. You also mentioned the Wasing Estate of which I am a syndicate member - small world.

I have been really lucky, my wife understands my obsession and I have never lost my enthusiasm. My two grandsons are still too young to go fishing but my ambition is for me, my son, and my grandsons to be all fishing in a line.I have caught a few fish along the way but am still learning.

 

[chub_on_the_block]

My first ever trip was to the Thames at Pangbourne with my dad in about 1975. He caught a skimmer i caught a bleak. He took me a few times to Thames at Canbury Gardens, Kingston which was much nearer to home, but by January 1977, when i was 12, he died from longstanding kidney disease. I then fished Thames at Kingston, Hampton Court, Walton, Shepperton, Chertsey and as far up as Windsor with schoolmates, usually going by train. Great memories...but catching only bits and pieces really - Ruffe, Gudgeon, Bleak, eels, occasional dace, perch and roach not nothing over about 6oz.

That went on for ages until a day when the boilers at school were not working one snowy morning. Sent home from school, me and a mate rushed home for our fishing gear and headed for Mole at Hersham. I got a 2Ib chub on the float and within a week or two had even managed a 5Ib carp on swingtipped bread. At this stage i guess i was bout 14 and had fished for about 4 years. At last the days of catching 270 bleak in a session at Windsor or 150 gudgeon and ruffe at Chertsey had passed as I somehow discovered how to catch some larger fish at last.

In retrospect I learnt where the better fish were or how to attract them as much as anything lse - in the case of the Thames better fish never did queue up to get caught. It often took a difficult cast to a far bank feature or good feeding to get through the bits and pieces to the better chub, roach, bream or occasional barbel.

About the time i was 16 or 17 i joined a SW London club and that was game changer - new venues as far afield as the Warks Avon, Hants Avon, Kennet, Dorset Stour, Arun, Upper Thames, Medway, Wallers Haven, Rother, etc etc and thats just the rivers. Learning and success grew exponentially during those years.

 

[john step]

I used to spend days and days fishing the Stanmore Common ponds

The spoilsports had fishing banned there last time I passed by.

---------- Post added at 19:53 ---------- Previous post was at 19:51 ----------

That brings back memories of a different kind for me Graham.

Many years ago I used to do an awful lot of print for law firms, a lot of which was produced on a paper called Croxley Script.

Now I know how it got its name

That river Gade at Croxley Moor was and probably still is one of the hottest chub rivers you could wish for.

 

[Graham Elliott 1]

Yes the Gade at Croxley. When I first fished it, it often ran pink with pink jelly gobules in the water from the mill.

On the weir, fish caught on silkweed, perch behind the log across the river downstream.
Always warm water...steamed in winter!

The walk along the railway to Ricki and the fish in the watercress runs.

North Harrow Waltonian, Stockers Lake, LAA next door big pike.

And yes Peter, I fished Stanmore ponds too.

I could write a book about it..

Oh. I have

 

[john step]

where did you learn your craft.? Oh bother, I'll let you know when I get to that exalted state of being. Could be some timemg:

 

[iain t]

Been fishing since i was a 4 year old whippersnapper that was 50 years ago. Don't time fly. Taught by my Dad and did my apprenticeship on the Thames in Putney and Chertsey. Think that's why i still love catching Eels. Still prefer Rivers over stillwaters and still learning my skill.

 

[maggot_dangler]

Started about 7 or 8 with rockpool dipping down at Westward Ho then attempting beach casting with a 6 foot fibreglass rod .

back home it was Edgbaston reser round by the inlet then chopping between sea and freshwater for years now entirely freshwater rivers canals pools .

PG ...