The Beginning of Something Special

I’ve been asked many times, what is your first memory of fishing? I was so lucky to have grown up in a time where there were so many fish in the river, so as an 8year old, until I was in my teens, I could not have failed to enjoy salmon fishing, at this time [late 1960s through the 70s], given the opportunity, every youngster would have been the same. But my fishing didn’t start with salmon, it started like that of most other lads at this time, with a worm of the end of some nylon I had pinched from my father’s fishing bag. No rod needed just a hook and worm, suspended from a willow branch overhanging a nice shaded spot on the river. Looking back, this was the beginning of a wonderful learning curve which I can only hope is far from complete.
As I write this, I can see the river Ugie, a small river which enters the North Sea at Peterhead on the Buchan coast, in most places no more than 40 feet wide, a slow moving river with fragile, undermined clay banks, meandering through the rolling but fertile Buchan countryside with character similar to that of many small East Coast streams. Like all rivers, the Ugie had its own birdlife. Coots and Moorhen are common here at this time, their families now fully fledged and on the wing. Sand-martins amassing around the thousands of burrows in the clay banks preparing for the long journey south, the noise of tens of thousands of geese just arrived at Strathbeg, a loch which at that time was home to more than 100,000 migratory birds. Oh boy, the excitement of waiting for those in the morning with my father, the anticipation of this as a boy! But that’s another story. As I think of my first proper fishing memory, I can smell the very distinctive autumnal air, damp, but not quite freezing, the smell of the farmyard giving way to that of the cleaner air as we approached the river, a unique and distinctive smell which I now only very occasionally get, but when I do, instantly transport me back to those more than happy times.
Scents are a part of fishing which, although seldom talked about, form a distinctive part of my fishing memories. Anyone who enjoyes fishing through the night until early morning will relate very well to this.
As the old car trundles to a halt, I finally see the river, the pool which has kept me awake half the night thinking about what it may hold for me. Oh, the excitement, my hands are shaking, the feeling of expectation! Finally I’m here, the morning mist, rolling from the river reveals a Dipper, washing himself before flying quickly upstream. He is leaving the way open for me to test my fishing skills on the good numbers of Autumn Salmon and Sea Trout resting under the banks and in the riffles! My morning had arrived!!