What was your first fish and where did you catch It ?

[bleak]

This question will have been asked before... New members in a New Year may be interested. Always some lovely memories to be had when asking the question ; what was your first fish and where did you catch it.

 

[bleak]

I thought that I should add that mine was a small perch from Moat park Maidstone. My float was a modified wine cork with a twig through it; I can still remember that float bobbing about on the surface. About 1966 the year.

 

[Peter Jacobs]

Mine was a small roach from the local common pond and while I dabbled with all species, as well as match fishing, the roach remains my favourite fish.
It was caught on a single 'gentle' bait on a size 14's hook . . . . . showing my age

My first "big" fish was a Tench of all of 3 pounds (according to my Litte Samson scale) caught from the Longwater at Hampton Court a year or two later.

 

[103841]

A stickleback caught with a net from a pond in Epsom, approx 1962.

First fish caught on a rod, can’t remember the species but it was on the Long water at Hampton court late sixties.

 

[John Keane]

Apart from jacksharps (sticklebacks) mine was a lovely golden rudd of around 6oz caught on a rod made from a sapling branch, some gut, a plain white quill float, a 14 hook to nylon and bread for bait. Caught it in a pit in a wood near to the Bowaters paper plant in Ellesmere Port.

 

[108831]

Just to say that i cant really remember,probably op's namesake...on a hook that is.

 

[steve2]

First fish a roach from Raphael park Romford. First bigger fish a chub from the River Roding near Passingford Bridge. We use to guest/poach all of the river and nearby ponds back then.

 

[seth49]

Apart from the usual minnows, loach and bullheads caught in a small net, my first fish on a rod was a chub of about a pound trotting a worm down the river hodder, near the farm where I used to live, at the village of Bashall Eaves.

In fact I’ve lived all my seventy years within four miles of Clitheroe Lancashire.

 

[rich66]

A small roach at Foxton GUC. My brother taught me to fish on that stretch.
I’d like to fish there again someday.

 

[barbelboi]

I posted this before on a similar thread some years ago - The first 'proper' fish that I remember vividly was a tench caught from a Colne valley pit in September 1952 (approximately a pound and a half). Apparently some other angler caught a somewhat larger carp that same month from a certain pool in Herefordshire and stole all the limelight..............

 

[rayner]

I've been trying to remember but I have no recollection of catching my first fish.

 

[nottskev]

The first fish I caught was a bootlace eel from the Shropshire Union in Chester, with a float on a bit of line tied to the end ring of a borrowed cane rod by one of the big kids I tagged along with. The first fish I caught "properly" (on my own, with a reel etc) was a flounder on legered worm from the tidal Dee - a world of its own, made of mud and the smell of sewage.

 

[mikench]

A perch caught on a worm on the Leeds Liverpool canal circa 1965. I suspect I didn't course fish again after 1968 until November 2015 when I caught an F1 on corn.

 

[stillwater blue]

I was knee high to a grasshopper and on holiday somewhere up North, I'd made friends with a another boy on the campsite and he took me 'fishing' for bullhead that we caught by lifting stones and then using our hands to trap them. I suspect it was the river Lune

My first ever line caught fish was a small roach from a lake in St Emilion whilst on holiday, I was fishing with a 3m whip and cooked wheat all bought from the local supermarket. I also used the same whip to catch my first sea fish whilst on holiday in Malta using a snail as bait.

 

[flightliner]

My first were sticklebacks with a net in the early fifties but my first "proper" fish was a roach on a home made rod of cane, bent safety pin runners and pop bottle top rubbers to hold the reel on.
I was using bloodworm scraped from bottom mud affixed to a bent pin.
I'll never forget that fish!

 

[no-one in particular]

A tiny roach accidentally caught on my dad’s rod in the Thames. Funny to think that tiny little non event led me to a life of utter madness.

 

[sam vimes]

I started as it turned out I'd carry on, whether I liked it or not, with a bloody minnow. After an awful lot of them, I got my revenge. My first proper fish was a trout, on a dead minnow.

 

[lambert1]

Minnow for me too from the little stream that ran through Woking Park circa 1968. The rod was Bamboo cane with hooped nails banged in and a cotton reel for the reel. The float was a Porcupine quill. I still love those quill floats more than any other.

 

[Keith M]

Apart from the usual sticklebacks, minnows millers thumbs and stone loach all caught either on a length of garden cane with cotton as my line or with a net; the only things that stick in my memory using a proper rod and line was the first time I beat my neighbours son with over a hundred small Bleak and stunted Roach on the great Ouse somewhere up the A1 back in 1962 when I was 12 years old.

The only other thing that really sticks in my mind was the day I caught my first ever Barbel from the river Kennet in 1975 and which I still remember very clearly as if it were yesterday right down to the smallest detail.

It was a warm summers evening and a friend of mine (Budgie) was going to introduce me to Barbel fishing on the river Kennet at Newbury.

My own rod and reel was totally unsuitable for catching Barbel so Budgie lent me a Richard Walker B.James & son MkIV Carp rod which he had spare in his car (and which I later bought from him for £10), together with a Mitchell 300 reel loaded with 8lb Sylcast line.

My end tackle was a link leger consisting of a string of SSG shot on a loop of line that was stopped on the mainline by a short section of Biro tube with a short section of cocktail stick pushed inside, and my hook was a size 4 Specimen hook, and my hooklength was around 6 to 8 inches in length.

I put a cube of Luncheonmeat on my hook with a piece of grass pushed into the hook bend to hold it firm and my mate Budgie told me to cast just past the centre of the river and then close my balearm and tighten up any slack, then place my finger over my line and feel for my end tackle through my finger as it trundled along the gravel and came to a stop.

My mate Budgie said that if I gently lifted my rod tip slightly every couple of minutes it would allow the bait to trundle a little bit further and to do this every couple of minutes.

”You should be able to feel the gravel through your finger and feel any streamer weed rubbing against your line” said Budgie, and I could.

”You will soon feel the difference between a proper bite and some streamer weed rubbing against your line” said Budgie; and a couple of minutes later I had a rod bender of a bite which almost took the rod out of my hands and I had my very first Barbel on the end of my line.

It fought like a tank and when I eventually managed to see it I thought It was huge, but Budgie said “it’s only about 5lb-ish and hopefully you’ll get one a bit bigger later” and I did catch one later that evening of a little over 8lb; but I can’t remember much about catching that one, as it was my first Barbel of 5lb 8oz that stuck in my memory ever since that evening.

Here’s a picture of my first ever Barbel caught that evening:



Keith

 

[S-Kippy]

First fish....a 10oz skimmer on bread from Little Britain Lake in Cowley (Middx) in about 1967. I've no doubt Simon and Jerry will know the place. It was some time before I caught another one, thank goodness.