At wot age did you first pick up a rod?

[Tyke]

I think i was about 12 when me and my brother went to a local gravelpit called the sandole in Wakefield.

We went to swim and saw a shoal of perch in the gin clear water and something happened to me that day.

Money was tight cos my dad was an idle git who never worked so me and my brother did some odd jobs for folk and swapped some toy cars e.t.c and managed to scrape together some tackle including a 10ft fibreglass rod.

We went back to the sandole and cought many a perch and that was the beggining of our fishing adventures together.

Alas my brother is dead now and at a tragic young age of 34.

I still cherish the memories of our fishing together.

[rob.i]

My father informs me I was 6 .My first fish was a Perch from the local mill lodge.

[Leon Roskilly]

Hooked at age 7 !

 

(53 years ago)

 

I remember it like yesterday

 

Carefully threading the catgut through the eyes of the bamboo cane rod, being shown how to plumb the depth with a porcupine quill float, its colours harmonising with the burnt marks on the bamboo, throwing some Spratts silvercloud into the swim, attaching gentles to the hook, then the porcupine first bobbing then sliding under.

 

The wonderful colours on the flank of a gudgeon, the stripes on the side of a perch, the red of a roach's fins.

 

Seven fish in the net, enough to see me through the next few blanks!

 

Tight Lines - leon

[poledark]

My non fishing Dad was given some old tackle by a workmate and passed it on to me and my two brothers.

I got the "billiard cue" sea rod, but I am the only one who still fishes.

 

Not quite as long ago as Vagabond but I was 10 years old, so that would make it 1947.

Den

[awaaar]

7 I remember it too - greedy perch...looked like a monster in my hand...must have been all of 6 ounces...

 

had a break when I was misled by women, beer and nightclubs etc.... :mad:

 

can't keep me away again now

[chuby]

Around the age of seven.Had a tank ariel rod ,and a small wooden centre pin,loaded with gut ,not nylon,those luxuries came later.

chuby

[Paul_D]

7 for me aswell, it was in 1968 and the venue was a pond in the Army barracks in Dortmund, Germany where my Dad was stationed. My first fish was a lovely little Mirror Carp of about 8ozs.

[randal]

10

[Tog]

First Rod was a 'winfield' from woollies handed down by one of my bro's, I'd have been about 5/6.

Prior to that I would catch bull heads etc by hand in the stream at the bottom of the garden.

Mum has a piccy of me about 4'ish? stood looking at a rainbow trout in a bowl, my dad and a chum would catch these in the stream and chuck e'm in a bowl until they had enough for a feed - aparantly I was mesmerised then! and always 'wanted a go'.

Continued 'coarse fishing for trout' up to my teens when 'other interests' took over.

Came 'back to the fold' in my mid twenties when I took up 'fluff chucking', was about 30 before I realy took an interest in coarse angling.

Tog

[J.K]

I was 4 and started on a welsh river and caught my first trout