What's your first memory of angling?

Not necessarily the first time you fished, but when you first came across fishing.

I suppose it would be trying to catch sticklebacks with a net when I was very young.

Later I remember sitting watching my cousin fish on a very cold windswept section of the Chesterfield canal that ran through Killamarsh village at about age 8.

After that I persuaded my father to dust of an old match rod and reel. My cousin and I would then go fishing on the same section of canal every week. We didn't catch much but that was probably due to us messing around and lobbing bricks in the cut more than anything else.

I really cant remember there was none, probably catching sticles in a net ot something at the seaside???, I`m always fished, I can remember the first time I walked either?

My dad was an avid angler so i always remember fishing regalia being around the house, but the first time he took me i was 7 yrs old, we went to the Severn at Deerhurst, iwas allowed to sit on his wicker fishing basket. I remember the eel i caught, it seemed massive at the time but was probably only a bootlace lol. From then on i went with him every week. When i first got married and had a baby, we got a babysitter and would cycle 11 miles with all our tackle to fish. I soon learnt to drive/forum/smilies/smile_smiley.gifOh happy days.

wabbit

<blockquote class=quoteheader>PoshPaul (ACA) wrote (see)</blockquote><blockquote class=quote>

The Gade in Cassiobury Park was where I got the fishing bug. I was only about 4 or 5 but used to run off from me mum and dad and "wade" in to watch the fisherman.

I remember what seemed a huge fish (now I know it was a perch) that lurked under the footbridge that led from the entrance roadway to where the watercress meadow was. Do they still have the model railway in the boggy area across the river. Then walking up to the Grand Union .....ah schoolboys for goalposts</blockquote>

Parents insisted I learned to swim before I could fish!!! So the actually art of angling was learned on the Medway between Teston and Maidstone, Mote Park in Maidstone, ponds around mid-kent and my beloved Witches Wood - a tearooms on the A26 just outside of Teston which a small lake at the back -full of small roach and rudd, tench, bream and some carp AND a small shoal of big chub. I "lived" there from aged 12 -18 (which may explain the less than convincing A level results - of course you revise hard when sitting by a beautiful pool!!)

Is it still there? Well I checked on google earth and the pond is still there but if it's fished or available for fishing I don't know.

Ah...

Mine

This feature didn't last long, did it?

Ahhhh , they were the days..cant remember my first angling exp......but one of my most vivid memories as a young lad{10-11} was that old nugget my mum would come out with when she'd come down at 5am to find me packing my old wicker basket for a day on the wensum with my mates.....:"SHAME YOU CAN'T SHOW THE SAME ENTHUSIASM WHEN IT COMES TO GETTING UP FOR SCHOOL......YOUNG MAN!!!!

<blockquote class=quoteheader>Fred Bonney (ACA - BS - BTO) wrote (see)</blockquote><blockquote class=quote>

Mine

This feature didn't last long, did it?</blockquote>


I did my second part (numbered 4x4) ages ago, but our busy and now retired editor never got around to publishing it.

My first experience was handlining for mackerel off a boat from Paignton in 1951. I can still remember the flashing silvery shapes in the deeper sections of the canal and wondering what they were and ow I could get a better look.

My first experience was on the Rochdale canal in Todmorden when I was 11,using my dads old split cane fly rod & fixed spool reel,didn`t catch owt. Nowts changed there then/forum/smilies/smile_smiley.gifUsedto sit there praying for a bite. Can remember seeing a big shoal of bream & thinking they were pike due to the angle of reflection in the water. Happy days

I saw a huge goldfish in an ornamental pond when i was a very young child and i was mesmerised,that snapshot memory never faded and i am sure that was the start of my interest in fish .A short while later fishing with my mad uncle frank in southport the twig float trembled and a roach took flight................I was hooked.

<blockquote class=quoteheader>PoshPaul (ACA) wrote (see)</blockquote><blockquote class=quote><blockquote class=quoteheader>Is it still there? Well I checked on google earth and the pond is still there but if it's fished or available for fishing I don't know.</blockquote>

Ah... </blockquote>
I also used to fish this pond. It was owned by an elderlylady called Freda Broad. For such a small water it held a huge head head of fish and some pretty decent carp. If I get the chance I will call by when I am next down that way.

Blimey Ray,

When did you fish it? I remember Jan and Freda Broad so fondly. I used to work in the tea rooms on a Sunday. They had a chap who lived with them -he worked in a bakers in Bank Street,Maidstone and did odd jobs on the property. And the gold labrador. lost contact after I went to college in Manchester

Do you remember the families who had the two caravans. One (Tony?) was a hairdresser whose shop was on the Old Kent Road (he also used to do karate). I remember one weekend when he had caught a blow on his hand and it had swelled up so that he couldn't hold a comb let alone scissors. He spet the entire weekend wading in the pool with his cutting hand held in the water!

The other family were greengrocers form London.

Pm if you remember anymore

I'm returning to my youth as I write

Poshers

I'd like to go there Paul - is there a bus I can catch/

/forum/smilies/smile_smiley.gif

My earliest memory is this... Fishing for perch with a bamboo pole on the Great Ouse.

Happy days /forum/smilies/big_smile_smiley.gif

Fishing the River Moy in Ireland. The full story is on here if you want to read it.