Who taught you to fish ?

[MyWorld]

My granddad was a provincial fisherman (fresh water, carp) and he gave me the passion for the sport, but after matric and work I just had no time on hand.

Left fishing for 6 years, got a fly rod when my mother moved to Underberg but never got into the fish since I was flat broke and could not afford to fish the well stocked dams and my knowledge on fly fishing was dismal!

Left fishing again for another 8 or so years and one fine day a friend came up to me and asked if I would accompany him on a fishing trip on the Vaal.

There and then the flame was rekindled and I started bait fishing with a passion!

A few months after that we were over at Nkolo Spa and while waiting for the carp to bite it thought to myself that this is the perfect spot for lure fishing and very soon afterwards got myself a brand spanking new fly kit and since then have landed allot of yellows on it!

Still a novice at fly fishing, but it has become my passion (I still do bait fishing and lure fishing for bass also!)

[frikb]

I would say my dad introduced me to fishing. It just somehow evolved to where I am today. I tried basically every facet to some degree and have been hooked on fly fishing for the last 3 years or so. My wife knows when I get this blank look on my face while she's talking to me I off somewhere with a flyrod in my hand dreaming of the big one.

[wernerm]

I still remember my first fishing trip. My dad bought me one of those kiddies kits when I was three years old. He took me to the rock pools down in Buffelsbay. While he went off hunting blacktail i worked the pools and caught my first fish. a two inch whatchemacallit. I took it home and kept it in a bowl and cried my eyes out when it died. That was it! Hooked for life. Fishing became my passion at the age of three. Probably the most vivid and exciting experience I have of my childhood. Been doing it ever since

[Jono Shales]

This is a really good post guys, I'm smiling from ear to ear reading the replies.

I'd say that my late brother played a huge part in planting the fishing seed in me. But because I was such a naughty sh1t at the age of 8, he never showed me a thing and I was left to watch and learn. We used to go to the Rainbow Trout Farm out at Muldersdrift, at first I didn't even have a trout rod, I was using a normal baitcaster with a fly on it. I'd pull the mono off the reel and fly cast with a normal rod!

Shortly after that I was invited for the weekend to 'Kirimitzi' in the Eastern Transvaal by my school mate Mark Rathbone. This would have been in around 1984. My friend's father was a really good angler and I remember him catching an 8lb rainbow, it was the biggest fish I'd ever seen. At this stage I still didn't have my own rod and had to borrow one from Mark's dad, I can still remember standing there making knots in the line and pretty much hooking everything around me.

[ShaunF]

My earliest memory of fishing was around the age of 2 going fishing at Midmar dam with my dad and grandfather. I fished off and on till about age 9, having NEVER caught anything, and pretty much thought it was the most boring thing anyone could do.

At around 10 years old, one of my dad's friends took us Bass fishing, and on that trip I caught my first Bass on a buzz bait. I think I nearly had heart failure from all the excitement of catching what was my first fish. I'll never forget that day. From then on I was hooked on Bass fishing, and fished as regularly as I could.

Somewhere around the age of 11 or 12, I saw a guy fly fishing on TV. I was totally fascinated. I couldn't work out how the hell this guy was throwing a feather so far, and what was all that thick coloured line for ? It was like nothing I had ever seen before. I remember buying a couple of flies and trying to cast them on my Bass rod. Even with split shot it was difficult and I never caught anything on any of them and kind of lost interest.

When I went to high school, one of the guys in my class was really into Bass fishing. He had Natal colours for it and was pretty hotshot. I think he might have even gone on to fish for SA since. I fished with him quite a lot during Std 6 and 7 and learned a lot in the process.

In Std 8 we got a brand new maths teacher. His name is Paul De Wet. I think he was even straight out of studying himself when he came to our school. Fresh faced and as enthusiastic as can be. He was a fly fisherman and a member of both the Natal Fly Fishers Club and the Fly Fishers Association.

He decided to form a fly fishing club at school, and I decided I wanted to give it a go, as fly fishing had always been on my mind, but had up until this point elluded me.

And so began Alexandra High Fly Fishing Club. Through the abovementioned clubs, we were allowed to fish their waters, but only on organised and supervised trips.

I bought myself my first fly rod. It was some Daiwa 2 piece fibreglass rod. Cost me R65 which was about 4 months pocket money, and a plastic Okuma reel. I couldn't afford a fly line so Paul gave me one of his old lines. This line was in terrible shape. The coating had gone totally brittle, and large sections had actually cracked off. It tangled terribly and cast like a piece of barbed wire through my rod's guides, but hey, it was a line.

The first 2 trips we went on, I was totally clueless, and pretty much spent the day whipping the water to a foam and knitting a jersey out of my leader and undoing tangles in the line, and never so much as even saw a fish.

However, this did not deter me. I spent every spare moment, (often including half of maths class!) talking about fly fishing, and break times watching flies being tied and all the time becoming more and more fascinated.

Shortly thereafter I managed to catch my first trout. When it took, I thought the world was going to end. I thought it was an absolute monster as I just couldn't get it under control. When I eventually landed what ended up to be a stockie of no more than 30cm, I realised just why it had put up such a fight - It was foul hooked in the tail !!

From then on, the cherry was popped and I began to catch more fish on a more regular basis, and have pretty much been hooked ever since.

It was also around this time that I met Tom Sutcliffe and the late Hugh Huntley, Roger Baert, Mike Harker and the late Bill Duckworth, who were all members of the NFFC, which I too joined.

I remember Tom accompanying us on one of our school club trips out to a dam in the Dargle Valley, and whilst rigging up, Tom suddenly said "There's a fish!" "Where??", I said, not seeing anything. "Its over there", said Tom. I just shrugged and still couldn't see anything. Tom finished tying on his fly, stalked down to the water's edge, made a single false cast and in an instant was hooked into a decent rainbow. I was floored ! The man was my hero from that moment on. He recently became my hero all over again when I saw him last year at the NFFC's 35th AGM. The last time I had seen Tom, I was probably about 15, and when I went up to greet him, expecting to say something like "Hi, you probably don't remember me, but......." he simply stuck out his hand and said "Hi Shaun!"

I also joined the Natal Fly Dressers Society which is the Maritzburg fly tying club, and the NFFC's sister club if you like. It was here that I first learned to tie flies. I was the youngest member in the club, and all the guys treated me like absolute gold. I couldn't afford to buy myself a vice or materials or anything, so Hugh Huntley, who was the club's chairman at the time, used to let me take the club's tying kit home. It was awesome, and had all sorts of interesting materials and stuff in it. I used to sit in front of the TV at night and tie and tie and tie until I couldn't see anymore, as I didn't have a lamp or anything either.

Unfortunately Paul left Alex after only a year, for the land of the Big Smoke. He taught at St Stithians for a while, but is now back in KZN teaching at Michaelhouse in the Midlands. I haven't seen him since I was 15, but believe he could quite well end up on the NFFC committee in the next few months, so I'm really looking forward to seeing him again and catching up.

This has been a real walk down memory lane for me, and I can't even begin to quantify the effect the people mentioned in this post had on my young life, whether they knew it or not, and I am eternally grateful for the many lessons they taught me.

Eish, but this is getting long now, but basically thats how I started fly fishing.

[Gerrit Viljoen]

This is how I got into Trout fishing,pap en sinker.

Back then I couldn't cast further than 5m.... Had to settle for the baitie approach.

[Gerrit Viljoen]

Just to finish the story,

I left the rod there that night.The following morning it was gone.Fished pulled it in.

I went to the corner of the dam with my fly rod that next morning,managed a 10-15m cast somehow,got a hook up only to find I hooked the line/rod with pap & fish on.

I rem it vividly,I had a Adolf on the end of the tippet.Thought I was going to eco Mr.Steel with a beaut of a fish he caught which can be seen his book,also caught on an Adolf.

[Jono Shales]

Classic storry Gerrit, loosing the rod like that.
I remember the same thing happening to me at Benoni Dam once fishing with pap. Walked away for 5 mins and came back to find my rod gone, pulled in by a barbel. The only thing I could see was the green rubber stopper on the butt of my rod in 4ft of water.

[rols]

Just got to love it Shaun, nice refreshing read first thing in the morning.
On a slightly different tack here, one thing that always seems to amaze me is how people will say....started off with the papgooi thing or the bait thing or whatever thing, as if they are inferior disciplines to FF. As long as people are enjoying themselves I say. Because we've moved on to FF, does'nt mean the other ones are not worthy anymore. I'm very glad I was given a fly rod and a quick, and I mean a quick how to...then they all buggered off as the fish were rising, leaving me to explore the many trees. I was'nt really enjoying myself and wished I had my bass rod with me rather. Caught my first fish eventually and it was a nice size at that, also had it for supper. I was given a whole outfit to brinng home with me and then the backyard fishing started and I hav'nt looked back since. I still hang with my buddies who fish other methods though

[ShaunF]

Just got to love it Shaun, nice refreshing read first thing in the morning.
On a slightly different tack here, one thing that always seems to amaze me is how people will say....started off with the papgooi thing or the bait thing or whatever thing, as if they are inferior disciplines to FF. As long as people are enjoying themselves I say. Because we've moved on to FF, does'nt mean the other ones are not worthy anymore. I'm very glad I was given a fly rod and a quick, and I mean a quick how to...then they all buggered off as the fish were rising, leaving me to explore the many trees. I was'nt really enjoying myself and wished I had my bass rod with me rather. Caught my first fish eventually and it was a nice size at that, also had it for supper. I was given a whole outfit to brinng home with me and then the backyard fishing started and I hav'nt looked back since. I still hang with my buddies who fish other methods though

Hi Rols,

Yeah you're 100% right. I've never really thought about fishing as a "progression" from one discipline to another with there being some sort of hierarchy or something. At the end of the day, its what you enjoy really. In my case my progression for lack of a better word was merely as a result of what forms of fishing I was exposed to when.

For me at least, fishing is about finding your niche, that place where you are most comfortable. Something that attracted me to fly fishing was the feeling of directness compared to Bass Fishing, what with no gear ratios on reels etc, and fancy factory made lures, just a couple of feathers tied to a hook.

Fly fishing to me is also a thinking man's form of fishing. There are so many different tactics that one can adopt, taking into account changing conditions, and I don't see too much of that in other disciplines.

Someone said it here the other day, and it rang particularly true for me. You become good at catching your target species using a particular fly or technique, then you meet someone who uses a different method, and so you try their way and in effect learn how to catch your target species all over again.